Strategic Project Management Report: XYZ Mining Industry

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of project management within XYZ Limited, a copper mining company facing significant maintenance challenges. The report begins with an executive summary outlining the core issues and objectives, followed by a detailed background on the company's operational context, including high maintenance costs and equipment failures. It then delves into the strategic context, emphasizing the need to increase production while reducing costs, and the strategic priorities set by the new CEO. The report outlines the company's current maintenance plan, highlighting its shortcomings, such as reactive maintenance and a lack of data-driven decision-making. It also explores sector-wide strategic maintenance systems, including preventive and predictive maintenance, planning, and scheduling. The core of the report focuses on the construction of a new maintenance strategy for XYZ Limited, proposing improvements such as a data management system, computerized maintenance management, and risk assessment. The deliverables of the project are clearly outlined, along with an implementation plan designed to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and protect equipment from failure. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of a proactive, data-driven approach to maintenance to ensure the company's long-term success.

Running Head: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
project management
[Document subtitle]

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 1
CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
BACKGROUND.............................................................................................................................2
STRATEGIC CONTEXT.........................................................................................................3
OPERATIONAL CONTEXT...................................................................................................3
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES.............................................................................................................4
DELIVERABLES............................................................................................................................5
CURRENT STRATEGIC MAINTENANCE PLAN AND SYSTEM...........................................5
SECTOR-WIDE STRATEGIC MAINTENANCE SYSTEM........................................................7
CONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY’S MAINTENANCE STRATEGY...............................8
OUTCOMES AND DELIVERY MAINTENANCE SYSTEM......................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The report will state the background of the problem and the present situation of the XYZ limited
of the mining industry. It will state that what are the major issues which are to be dealt by the
new appointed CEO within a given time period of three months. The report will further state the
strategic priorities of the company after the joining of the new CEO. There will be a current
strategic plan of the mining company which will show the strategies which are used for the
maintenance. Further, there will be a strategic maintenance system which is used by the other
companies in the mining industry. And there will be a construction of management strategies for
the company in order to implement the effective maintenance system. Further, the constructed
strategies will give the outcome and delivery mechanisms.
Therefore, it is very important for the company to have effective maintenance system in order to
protect the equipment from failure and this helps in increasing productivity with minimum cost.
The implementation plan is also given in order to help the CEO to develop effective maintenance
system in a given period of time.
BACKGROUND
The XYZ limited is a heap leach copper mine industry of the mining sector. The company is in
existence from the past 20 years. The company is facing the breakdown with more than 50
percent, and this is impacting the availability of the tools and equipment. Maintenance is one of
the major problems for the company and the cost incurred in repair is very high. The company is
facing the problem of controlling and monitoring the cost of maintenance. It is believed that the
cost incurred in maintenance is half of the cost incurred in operations annually. As it is very
important for a company to control their maintenance cost otherwise, it will incur a huge cost in
future for the company, and it would not be possible for the company to control the maintenance.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 3
This problem of maintenance is creating an issue of wear and tear of the tools and equipment,
and this makes them obsolete. Therefore, it is very necessary to take some measures in order to
control the cost of maintenance. As the maintenance plan is very necessary for the company in
order to survive.
STRATEGIC CONTEXT
The mining company should stick to the main motive of the organization at present. The
objective is to increase the production and reduce the cost of operating and also by reducing
investments. It is very important to control the cost of maintenance in order to protect the tools
and equipment from wear and tear which would further result in the failure of the equipment. It
is also being researched that there are two types of failures i.e. age based and random based.
Therefore, some equipment fail at the early stage of the production and some are used for a
longer period of time. The duration of maintenance of equipment should remain minimal. And
there should be a strategic plan in order to check the frequency and cost of maintenance.
OPERATIONAL CONTEXT
The mining company believed that there is no need of repairing the equipment, and just replace
them with the new ones. The company doesn’t have a clear vision of what equipment to replace
and what equipment requires repairing. And this further causes the failure of the equipment
because of wear and tear. The maintenance of equipment is done properly if the required type of
resources is identified, there is a proper detail of parts which are being ordered and issued, bills
of the materials are completely developed, etc. therefore, all these things would protect the
equipment from failure (Horbery et al; 2016). This is to be done when the machines are in use in
order to avoid wear and tear of the equipment. The mining company can also use various
methods in order to prevent the failure of the equipment. The methods are vibration analysis,

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 4
thermal analysis of imaging, inspection of the tools and equipment, etc. therefore, all these
methods and techniques help the company in controlling and managing the maintenance. But
some of the methods are expensive. So, the company has to analyze the cost first before applying
the above techniques for the maintenance of equipment.
STRATEGIC PRIORITIES
As the CEO of XYZ limited of the mining industry has been changed, the strategic priorities of
the organization are also changed. The CEO is given a target to gain the refinement in the
production, reducing the costs of operating, reducing the investments, etc. but the main motive is
to manage and control the maintenance in order to protect them from wear and tear. The
maintenance cost is not proliferated clearly by the management. The priority of the company is
to increase the productivity and efficiency. The productivity and efficiency of the organization
can be increased by identifying the untold truths and paying the more attention to the weak areas
and implement the corrective measures. The management should provide training to the
employees in order to handle the tools and equipment in an appropriate manner and protect them
from the failure. This would help the company to control and manage the maintenance. And this
would also help the employees to improve their skills and practically use them. The company
should implement the strategic plan for the maintenance of equipment. For example, the
company should know that whether they have to use preventive or predictive methods and
techniques of maintenance of tools and equipment. (Chemweno et al; 2016)
Therefore, the strategic priorities have been changed with the change of CEO as she is being
appointed in order to focus on the major issues and give productive results within the time period
of three months.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 5
DELIVERABLES
The following are the deliverables of the project:-
 A transparent and accurate formulation of the objective and the required conditions for
the practices of the enterprise management at the site of the mining.
 An anatomy and evidence of the maintenance state for identifying the main cause of the
problem of current practices of maintenance at the site of the mining.
 Explaining the cause of the problem which will be persevering and suggesting the
solution which will help in resolving the problem.
 Identifying the negative aspects of implementing the required approach.
 Identifying the barriers to the implementation.
 Developing the implementation plan of the project for finding important tasks like time,
resources, etc.
 Developing the driver tree which will show the relationship between the practices and the
desired objective.
CURRENT STRATEGIC MAINTENANCE PLAN AND SYSTEM
The current strategic maintenance plan of the company is that they replace the machine at the
time of failure, and they don't repair the machine whether the machine is newly equipped or the
old one. The current state of the company is:
 The finance department is not giving the clear information about the cost of maintenance.
And because of this the management is not able to identify that what are the materials and
resources which are more important for the uninterrupted improvement.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 6
 There are many projects which involve the establishment and refinement of the tools and
equipment during break down. In many cases, the actions were relied on incorrect
suppositions like the installed equipment will be changed and refined by making the other
plans superfluous.
 The root cause of the failure of the equipment is not identified, and the failure of the
machinery occurs in a repetitive mode.
 When OEM suggested the regime for maintenance, the company did not perform any test
in order to check whether the suggested regime is suitable or not.
 The mining company also failed in keeping the Computerized Maintenance Management
System.
 The employees felt that the orders given by the supervisors in order to check the
equipment are a very boring activity. And they don't check the machines in order to find
the issues of failure. There is no inspection of the information related to purchases,
training of employees, analysis, etc.
 There is no strategy of robust repair in order to identify the different patterns of failure of
the equipment.
 The team of HR training and recruitment does not siege the adequate skills of
maintenance.
Therefore, the current strategic maintenance system has become a great problem for the mining
company, and the huge losses have incurred.
SECTOR-WIDE STRATEGIC MAINTENANCE SYSTEM
The other companies in the mining sector follow the following methods and strategies for the
effective maintenance system (Horbery et al; 2016)-

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 7
 Preventive maintenance:
The various companies in the mining sector make a plan in various forms for the maintenance.
And it is performed on the regular basis in order to reduce the chances of failure of the
equipment. This is done when the machinery is in use in order to find the patterns of failure. It is
being scheduled on the basis of usage and time. The preventive maintenance protects the
machines from the breakdown and it identifies the solution at the earlier stage.
 Predictive maintenance:
The various companies in the mining sector are also adopting the predictive maintenance
methods. This helps to identify the patterns of failure when the equipment is performing. The
main motive is to preserve duration and frequency at the lower level. The work plan is prepared
for the various types of failures. The failure can be identified with the help of some techniques,
but that should suit the type of problem, for example, vibration analysis, inspection of tools and
equipment, analyzing, etc. but sometimes the usage of these techniques is costly depending on
the issue. The main motive is to reduce the time which the equipment will take for the
maintenance.
 Planning maintenance:
This helps the company to know what work is to be done and how it is to be done. The plan is
saved in an electronic mode, and it is being used at the time of failure of equipment. And if there
is no plan and the machine requires maintenance then it is known as the unplanned maintenance.
The companies in the mining industry make the strategic plans for the events of failure in order
to remain prepared for the future occurrence.
 Scheduled maintenance:

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 8
This helps the company to know that who will be doing the job and when it is going to be done.
After the planning, the schedule is made and if there is no schedule and the equipment requires
maintenance then it will be known as breakdown maintenance. This is used by the personnel in
order to clear the roles of the employees that what is their job.
Therefore, the above-given methods and techniques are used in the different companies of the
mining sector in order to control and manage the maintenance system.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE COMPANY’S MAINTENANCE STRATEGY
The XYZ limited of the mining industry, it is being proposed that the new appointed CEO will
work according to the new maintenance strategy in order to protect the equipment from failure
within a given timeframe i.e. three months. Well, trained experts will be hired in order to find
and enhance the strategies which will help the company to identify the risks and different
patterns of failure and will manage them effectively and efficiently. (Campbell et al; 2015)
 There will be a development of data management system in order to find the patterns of
failure in the equipment and analyzing the trends.
 There will be an examination of checklists which are important for the maintenance
system.
 There will be a development of computerized maintenance of management system and
the risk matrix in order to minimize the cost and risk of the failure of equipment.
 There will be a conservation of quality verification.
 The tasks of maintenance will be identified and suggested in order to reduce the chances
of failure.
 There will be a development of reliability centered maintenance for the assets in order to
make the high availability of equipment.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 9
 There will be the adoption of planning and scheduling maintenance.
Therefore, the above-given strategies will help the mining company to solve their major issue of
maintenance of equipment from the failure.
OUTCOMES AND DELIVERY MAINTENANCE SYSTEM
The above-given strategies will give the following results which will be beneficial for the mining
company in order to protect the equipment from failure.
 Identification of damaged tools.
 Maintenance of damaged equipment.
 Budget allocation for future maintenance.
 Identification of the different patterns of failure
 Return on investment
 The cost of maintenance of equipment will minimize.
 Elimination of unplanned breakdown.
 Equipment will be used for a longer period of time.
 The increase in equipment dependability.
 The increase in production.
CONCLUSION
This report is the summary of the XYZ limited of the mining industry. The report states the
problem of the company in the context of strategy and operations. The strategic priorities of the
company after the joining of the new CEO as only three months were given in order to overcome
the problems by facing the challenges. The current strategic plan is also given which the
company is using at present, but it is not up to the mark as there were problems in maintenance
of equipment and tools. And the failure of equipment is taking place because of the wear and

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 10
tear. Further, the strategies are given which are being followed by the other companies of the
mining sector. This will help the company to know the present scenario and what measures can
be taken in order to develop an effective maintenance system for protecting the equipment from
failure. Then there is the construction of new strategies for developing an effective maintenance
system which is being developed by the new appointed CEO, and she made the strategies with
the help of project team. Then there are the outcomes of the strategies which shows that all the
problems have got their solutions, and there will be an implementation of an effective
maintenance system in order to protect the equipment from the failure.
REFERENCES
Campbell, J. D., & Reyes-Picknell, J. V. (2015). Uptime: Strategies for excellence in
maintenance management. CRC Press.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT 11
Chemweno, P. K., Pintelon, L., Muchiri, P. N., & Jongers, L. S. (2016, June). i-RCAM:
Intelligent expert system for root cause analysis in maintenance decision making. In 2016 IEEE
International Conference on Prognostics and Health Management.
Horberry, T., Burgess-Limerick, R., & Steiner, L. (2016). The human-centered design of
equipment: lessons from the mining industry.
Horberry, T., Burgess-Limerick, R., & Steiner, L. J. (2016). Human factors for the design,
operation, and maintenance of mining equipment. CRC Press.
Jardine, A. K., & Tsang, A. H. (2013). Maintenance, replacement, and reliability: theory and
applications. CRC press.
Prno, J. (2013). An analysis of factors leading to the establishment of a social license to operate
in the mining industry. Resources Policy, 38(4), 577-590.