About SMART Benchmarking
SMART
The Surface Mine Association for Research & Technology (www.smartmines.com)
is an association of surface mining companies formed in 1995 to develop a coordinated
approach to technology development for the mining industry. Collectively, members
have a wealth of knowledge and experience that can be used effectively to direct
research programs and other initiatives for the mining industry.
SMART BENCHMARKING
The SMART Benchmarking Project was initiated in 2003. The vision for this initial
effort was to provide a means for low cost continuous benchmarking that would expand
to include many surface mining operations.
For each participating mining firm, benchmarking supports learning about best practice
achievement in a performance dimension as a means to augment those dimensions where
best in class performance has already been achieved.
To support a sustainable benchmarking effort that would easily accommodate new mining
participants over time, an innovative approach is used. The project development
is designed in a staged format, so that new mining firms can join the already participating
mining firms at any time. This keeps costs to a minimum, and enables ongoing expansion
of the program capability to ensure viability for all participants. Initial set
up costs for each new participant are kept to a minimum and costs for reporting
are very low, resulting in a high value return for each participating mining firm.
Every quarter, participating mining firms submit monthly mining information related
to production, availability, utilization and other time-based metrics as determined
by the participants. These incoming data for trucks, shovels and support equipment
are normalized based on agreed to common definitions for key performance parameters.
The information is summarized and reported quarterly to enable participants to
determine their relative standings and explore opportunities to achieve better performance.
Provision has been made within the benchmarking framework for firms to network with
each other in areas of interest.
Marston Canada Ltd., a third party consulting firm with mine engineering and mine
planning experience, manages the benchmarking data and confidentiality of information
for the participants.
Marston’s benchmarking project implementation efforts include:
- Develop data gathering techniques (means of collection and storage practices for
data control and normalization, common metrics for comparison, data templates and
database design and preparing data/reports using preferred format for data)
- Gathering reports/analyses for the industry participants involved with SMART
- Security and confidentiality of information belonging to identified parties
- Identification of best practice among participants
Project development is staged so that participating mining firms can join at any
time while keeping costs to a minimum and expanding program capability to ensure
viability for all participants. Initial participants in the project were Syncrude
Canada, Suncor Energy and Albian Sands Energy. Several other major surface mining
companies have joined the benchmarking project since its inception.