Lean Approaches in Asset Management Within the Mining Industry

Companies such as Toyota have been successful in implementing approaches of Lean Thinking (such as Kanban, Kaizen and 5S) to eliminate non-value adding processes. Mining companies often experience a lot of waste generated from non-value adding processes and often do not minimize the waste proactively. This waste includes physical material waste extracted from processes, idle time during processes, defects in products, excess inventory (including keeping too many spare parts on hand) and overproduction. This waste results in a lack of productivity, inefficiencies, pollution, overuse of available resources and a lack of quality in products or services. This paper discusses the modern Lean Thinking approaches that have been applied successfully within the automotive industry, as well as within non-manufacturing industries such as the post office industry and health care industry. Their current application within the mining industry is also investigated. Case studies of three mining companies that have adopted Lean Thinking successfully, Rio Tinto, PT Inco and a Votorantim Group fluorspar mine, are discussed and the benefits of Lean Thinking to such mining companies are provided.