Looking back at the industry’s productivity decline since 2000, EY global mining and metals advisory leader Paul Mitchell said Australia was not alone, with South Africa and US coal also registering big losses.

Mitchell said while many miners had made cost cuts over the past 2-3 years through conventional means, more structural transformations were needed to reverse the trend.

“Making productivity gains isn’t as simple as further cost reduction efforts,” he said.

“The supercycle lasted for so long it had the impact of altering the DNA of mining companies to adapt the processes, performance measures and culture solely toward growth.

“This transformation has occurred by stealth and the counter-transformation will need to be far more radical.

“The size of the problem is too large for conventional solutions to work. Real productivity gains will only come from a whole-of-business, end-to-end transformation.

“A narrow focus on point solutions or continuous improvement won’t solve the problem and could even be counterproductive.”

Mitchell said point solutions could simply move a problem along the supply chain and good data needed to underpin an end-to-end solution.

He said serious and sustainable improvements could require changes to mine plans, reassessment of mining methods, changes to equipment fleet and configuration and increasing automation.

“Most of these have been untouched by cost reduction exercises and in some cases reducing production may be beneficial,” he said.

“The quest needs to be long-term and requires a change across the organisation from the boardroom to the pit.”

EY said a good productivity strategy was based on a broad set of value drivers and looked to integrate and align the whole supply chain.

The approach includes standardisation of work procedures and aligned planning, budgeting and performance measurement.

In other areas, EY said the mining industry spent very little on research and development compared to other sectors, with spending on developing key mining and processing methods particularly low.

An inadequate skills mix brought on by boom-time shortages was also blamed for a decline in labour productivity.

At the top end of the market, Rio Tinto’s mine of the future program was highlighted as one of the best initiatives, along with its move to divest non-core assets.

BHP Billiton was also recognised for some of its strategies, including placing all operations on a common information management program to replicate best practices across the group.

EY said the best companies made bold rather than incremental changes and had a long-term vision and plan.

It said good companies eliminated silos, looked for broad solutions and set consistent performance measures.

The Productivity in mining: A case for broad transformation report was produced in collaboration with the University of Queensland.