Hatching out best mining practices.

• Author: Ross, Ian

With a Rolodex full of new contacts and a slide show of photos, Sudbury mining engineer Jim Gallagher wants to open up the minds of the Canadian mining industry to new ideas.

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Gallagher, Hatch's senior manager of mining and mineral processing, has spent the fall and winter of 2005-2006 globetrotting to mine operations in the remote reaches of Australia and the Scandinavian countries of Norway, Sweden and Finland, cherry picking new concepts of the best mining practices available.

He was accompanied by an Xstrata Nickel management team, including Hugh MacIsaac, construction manager of Sudbury's Nickel Rim South mine.

Though sometimes difficult to change ingrained cultural attitudes at many Canadian mines, Gallagher, himself a former Xstrata Nickel mine superintendent, realizes gradual change is possible at some of the newer greenfield sites. Some ideas will be implemented in Sudbury.

At Xstrata Nickel, there was a strong desire to incorporate industry best practices at Nickel Rim South mine, now under construction in the Sudbury Basin.

It was an eye-opening experience for Gallagher in catching 21 flights, in 14 days, to tour various iron, nickel, copper, zinc and gold operations in the Western Australian outback.

The safety practices had a profound impact on him.

Australia went from having one of the industry's poorest records 15 years ago, to one of the best today.

Using a Canadian innovation, the Positive Attitude Safety System (PASS), Australian mines encourage total employee involvement in their daily dialogue by pointing out positive acts of safety during morning shift meetings.

"Instead of having one safety supervisor at a mine, you've got 330," says Gallagher. "The Canadian system is geared to audits and finding things that aren't safety compliant, rather than focusing on the positive safety acts."

The worker incentive system is also different. Production incentives have in many mines been eliminated, opting instead for a promotional system.

"You have to achieve both performance and quality of work in order to move up the ladder."

A bottom-rung forklift operator earns $60,000 annually while a top-end jumbo operator can earn up to $200,000 a year. However, they all work 12-hour shifts and significantly more hours per year than the average Canadian miner.

Australia's system is very task-oriented with dedicated operators performing one job. "It's much easier to monitor performance because when all you do is drill...