Case Study - Project Green
The Business: A commercial division of a university provides "mine to mill" services includes consulting services, laboratory analysis, software development and testing equipment manufacture for mining entities in several countries. The business also commercialises IP from a related entity. Employed 80 staff including geologists, mining engineers, consultants and metallurgists and specialises in mining processes, flotation, comminution and laboratory metallurgy analysis.
The Brief: As Project Manager working in the "Office of the CEO - Projects", assist the CEO and 5 GM's to review, identify, recommend and prioritise various within business improvement initiatives and assist implementation. Project duration 6 months.
Background: The business provides specialist services supporting the global mining sector and has diversified from its core business pursuing various expansion opportunities. Over time this has created internal business complexity, excess overheads and underlying losses while internal support services have not been developed. The business has evolved to include 20 BU's with 1 CEO and 5 GM's including 6 legal entities. With the contraction in the mining sector, the underlying weakness in the core business has been exposed.
Given the research background of the management and workplace culture, the business lacks the commercial rigor and control to self-assess and be commercial and required independent assistance to review and improve.
The scope included:
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Assisting the GM's to develop an operating plan to support the strategic objectives set for the fiscal year.
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Develop a project plan to monitor and communicate the operating plan to the Board and staff.
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Develop a number of project management status tools to identify and track the status and priorities of software development, equipment outsourcing, site relocation and CRM software implementation.
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Development of position descriptions for key management staff, updated organisation chart and HR procedures.
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Develop a capacity planning tool to monitor the laboratory services loading.
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Review and simplify the weekly customer sales pipeline status driven from 16 sources of data collection.
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Provide commercial advice and resource for key tenders.
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Provide training on management issues including introduction of Lean principles to illustrate non-value adding process waste.
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An extensive business review and making the situation more transparent on the status of the financials, skills, culture, areas for improvement and providing a pathway forward to improve business profitability.
PACE Outcome Assessment.
Using a Problem, Assessment, Corrective Action, and End Results framework, the review of the project headlines are:
