The conference is sponsored by the Pennsylvania State University Outreach Program as well as the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Queen’s University and the University of Arizona, and will be held May 11-12 next year in Rapid City, South Dakota.
“Since 2004, the summit has become the place for 550 international mining process improvement professionals to gather real-world techniques for implementation in their companies,” organizer recently said.
“The program is shaped by top leaders from the industry, and the keynote speakers are mining executives whose focus on cost containment, increasing safety and productivity performance, organizational change, risk management, and sustainability helps improve business improvement efforts.”
Past conference attendees have included mine management personnel and process improvement experts from both the mine and corporate levels.
The organizers are preparing to open a call for presentations in October, a request that will carry a deadline of January 20, 2011.
Some of the topics being sought include cost containment, maintenance and reliability, processing, supply chain management, general business improvement and stories of implementation success.
Also being worked on are the summit’s keynote presenters; some past keynotes include presentations by Caterpillar chairman Glen Barton, BHP Billiton operating excellence vice-president Tony Elringham, and Peabody Energy president Greg Boyce.
Two tentative keynotes for 2011: Siemens president Jagannath Rao and Cloud Peak Energy chief executive Colin Marshall.
