The following is an excerpt from The Miner, a quarterly magazine highlighting the great work happening at the company’s North America mining operations and processing facilities. The Miner recently relaunched after a two-year hiatus. Read the full story in the latest edition.
(May 11, 2022) At its core, Bagdad operations’ Drive to 95k is a mining superhighway built on front-line innovation, incremental process improvements and capital investments fixated on one central goal: increased production.
The initiative is the North Star guiding the site to a sustained production goal of 95,000 tons per day through its existing mill. Rather than just spending top dollar on new equipment, leadership has taken a holistic approach, placing employees in the driver’s seat on the best path forward.
Sure, the site invested $19 million on a new primary crusher – commissioned in April 2021 – and upgrades to the conveyor system helped increase throughput to the mill. Yet the Drive to 95k is so much more. It’s a change that demands everyone put their best ideas forward.
“Yes, we're making some traditional capital investments to enable this,” said Justin Cross, former General Manager-Bagdad who now is Vice President-Operational Improvement. “However, the real focus is how do we engage everyone at all levels and deploy the right technologies and strategies to get the job done efficiently and safely? Equally as important as our capital expenditures is that we are now capturing and implementing more ideas from our front-line employees.”
The tactic isn't new for Bagdad, but significantly increasing production required the formation of a Drive to 95k team to help empower employees to share and implement ideas to move the needle. Together, the employee-driven approach of pursuing value and innovation through incremental changes from those in the field is paying off.
Read the full story about Bagdad’s Drive to 95k and other features in the current edition of The Miner.