Track: Operations Management

Abstract

In order to gain a deeper understanding of the current state of Industrial engineering in the mining industry a qualitative research study was conducted to investigate the success factors for the implementation of Industrial engineering projects or the application of Industrial engineering tools and techniques in mining in a South African context. Mining plays a very important role in the South African economy. Industrial engineering also has a vital role to play in mining and due to its versatility it can be applied during any stage of the mine’s lifecycle. There is a general need to raise wide awareness about Industrial engineering within the mining sector on the value and benefits of Industrial engineering since it is a fairly new discipline within the mining sector. Currently Industrial engineering is being applied in marketing and logistics, supply chain, long term planning and optimisation, production/operations in continuous improvement or business improvement and acquisitions and investments.

In order to investigate the success factors a questionnaire was developed from an extensive literature review and six interview surveys were conducted with six Industrial engineers who are currently working in the mining sector. Thematic content analysis was used to examine the information obtained from survey interviews. From the thematic content analysis success factors for successful implementation of Industrial engineering projects in mining were identified which resulted in the formulation of five factor groupings. The factor groupings are namely people factors; factors that relate to interactions amongst the project stakeholders, organisational factors; factors that that relate to the organisation, its organisational culture and organisational structure, project factors; factors that relate to the actual project itself, environmental factors; environmental factors give the likelihood of external factors impacting on the operations of the project/project stakeholders positively or negatively, and factors related to Industrial engineering as a discipline within the mining industry. Amongst these five factor groupings people related factors followed by project related factors were found to be the most critical factors for successful implementation of Industrial engineering projects in mining in a South African context. The project can be the best solution but if the people factors are not right then successful implementation is very difficult to achieve. Amongst the people factors change management was also cited as the most critical factor for successful project implementation.