Overhauling Change Management to Prevent Costly Downtime in Mining Operations
Building Reliable Change Processes for High-Stakes Mining Environments
Executive Summary
In a major mining operation, flawed change management processes were triggering frequent critical incidents. These often brought mining infrastructure to a standstill, halting production and driving substantial production losses and missed opportunities. Internal teams had attempted several fixes, yet problems persisted. Familiarity bred complacency, approvers often waved changes through based on personal relationships rather than objective risk assessment. “I know Tony, he’s solid, it’ll be fine” became a common refrain. The Change Advisory Board met regularly, but lacked authoritative stakeholders. Members tended to rubber-stamp proposals because they knew the requesters personally, rather than challenging potential impacts and risks.
An external perspective was needed to break the cycle. I stepped in to overhaul the process. My approach centred on stripping away complexity, defining clear accountabilities, and introducing straightforward risk evaluations that could not be bypassed through matey agreements. By redesigning workflows and embedding independent checks, we eliminated casual approvals, reduced risky changes, and rebuilt confidence in the system. The outcome delivered far fewer disruptions, protected production continuity, and equipped the IT team to manage changes rigorously in a high-stakes environment.
The Challenge
- Flawed change management repeatedly triggered critical incidents that stopped mining infrastructure and halted production.
- High familiarity among teams led to complacency, with changes approved based on personal trust rather than objective risk review.
- The Change Advisory Board met regularly but lacked authoritative stakeholders, resulting in routine rubber-stamping of proposals.
- Risk assessments were inconsistent or skipped, allowing small oversights to cascade into major outages.
- Overly complex procedures encouraged shortcuts, as staff found the official process too cumbersome in a fast-moving operational environment.
- Previous internal improvement attempts failed to address root causes, leaving the process fragile and unreliable.
- Operations (IOT) teams viewed change controls as bureaucratic hurdles, creating tension and reducing cooperation with IT.
The Solution
- Conducted a full end-to-end audit of the change process, mapping every step to expose hidden inefficiencies and cultural shortcuts.
- Simplified workflows dramatically, removing unnecessary layers and categorising changes into clear types with tailored handling.
- Redefined approval gates with mandatory input from independent, authoritative stakeholders across IT, operations, and safety.
- Introduced objective risk assessment tools, including mandatory checklists and impact reviews that prevented personal familiarity overriding caution.
- Ran targeted, hands-on training using real mining scenarios to demonstrate how rigorous checks protect production.
- Restructured the Change Advisory Board to include decision-makers with accountability, ensuring challenges to proposals became the norm.
- Embedded automated alerts and quick feedback loops to catch issues early and continuously improve the process.
Results at a Glance
- Cut change-related critical incidents by 70%, sharply reducing production halts from IT failures
- Restored production reliability, protecting mining operations from frequent and prolonged downtime
- Shortened change approval times by 40%, enabling faster updates while maintaining rigorous controls
- Eliminated complacency driven approvals, replacing personal trust with objective risk reviews and independent oversight
- Rebuilt trust between IT and operations teams through clearer processes and visible protection of production continuity
- Equipped the Change Advisory Board with authoritative members, turning it into an effective gatekeeper rather than a rubber stamp
- Empowered staff with practical training and simple tools, boosting confidence in handling high-stakes changes
My Role & Insights
My Role:
As the lead consultant on this engagement, I conducted the end-to-end audit that uncovered the cultural and procedural root causes of the failures. I redesigned the change workflows from the ground up, stripping out complexity and introducing clear categorisation, objective risk tools, and independent approval gates. I restructured the Change Advisory Board to bring in proper authority and accountability, ran practical workshops with real-life mining examples to shift mindsets, and worked side by side with IT and operations teams to embed the new practices. Throughout implementation I provided hands-on guidance, adjusted based on early feedback, and ensured the process was sustainable before handing it over to the internal teams.
Key Insights
- Familiarity really does breed complacency in change management, so independent challenge is non-negotiable in high-stakes environments.
- Simple, clear rules get followed far more often than elaborate ones. Frontline operations staff know the real risks better than anyone, involve them early and they become your strongest allies. A good external review cuts through years of internal assumptions in weeks.
- Measure success by reduced incidents and smoother production, not just by how many changes you process.
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