As Stokes puts it, underground decline mining not changed for a long time.

“The equipment has gotten bigger and better,” he said but that, it appears is about it.

So how does a contract miner give its clients more bang for their buck?

By finding ways to do things better.

Stokes said that was the path he had started Barminco down.

“Last year we kicked off a Lean 6 Sigma program through the business. We tasked a group of guys to lead six different projects. Some were about cost and some were about productivity. In parallel with these we’ve been working with Anglogold’s Sunrise Dam and we’ve been able to improve productivity there. It’s about how do you squeeze that little bit more out,” he said.

Barminco also bit the bullet and updated its mining fleet, bringing on Sandvik’s latest 60 tonne articulated haulers.

“A few years ago Sandvik went to the market and asked what it wanted in a truck,” Stokes said.

“We have five of them running up at Sunrise.

“Sandvik made their tubs slightly bigger, which means you can carry more tonnes as gold ore has a lower specific gravity. We’re working out how we can squeeze more out of the equipment.”

One way to do this is to use the technology available to advantage.

In Barminco’s case Stokes said it used the automation in its Sandvik longhole drills to get them to drill one hole by themselves at the end of each shift so the driller could prepare for handover.

“That technology has been around for years,” he said.

Communications technology looks like being another boon for underground miners.

Stokes said a lot of mines were putting in optic fibre underground.

This is making it easier to operate underground mining machines from the surface through teleremote.

The benefits of this are many, not least of them is the fact that it removes an operator from the underground environment, which is a huge safety plus.

But look beyond the safety aspect.

Think how long it takes for an underground operator to get below to the machine before they can start work.

With teleremote there is none of the need for the operator to go underground.

“At Agnew we have boggers operating from the surface,” Stokes said.

“We’ve picked up another 20 to 30 minutes per shift.”

Another benefit of teleremote is the fact that the machines can be put back to work sooner after blasting.

Normally when a blast occurs, all work underground ceases until the mine’s ventilation system has had a chance to clear the blast fumes.

With teleremote, because there is no operator involved, the blast fumes are not an issue.

Therefore, as Stokes puts it: “Once we can see we can go back to work.”

However, even that is not remaining an issue. The company is also looking at ways to get back to work even before the dust settles and is turning to technologies such as laser guidance to help it.

Stokes reckons this is only early days for the technology though.

As Rio Tinto has shown through its Mine of the Future program, operating large pieces of mining equipment from 2000km away is not out of the question.

Okay, the equipment being underground adds an extra degree of difficulty but that is being ironed out by the improvement of communications infrastructure in underground operations.

“The next generation of the technology will be to run the machines from Perth,” Stokes said.

“However, that aside, it’s the simple incremental things that are giving us a lift.”

Safety has also been a productivity driver for the underground mining contractor.

“It gives the operators the opportunity to talk about safety but also productivity,” Stokes said.

“We can talk to them one on one about how we can help them do their job more efficiently. We work hard to down our lost time injury rate which is at 0.6.”

Barminco is also working with its equipment suppliers to find out how they can help it improve productivity.

This is about making sure that Barminco’s operators are making the very best of the technology.

But it is not stopping there.

Remember that optical fibre the miners are putting down? Barminco is working out ways to make that work for it beyond just for teleremote operations.

“We’re using the optical fibre to pick up predictive maintenance data from the trucks from underground,” Stokes said.

“We’re trying to move to more predictive maintenance,” he said.

“The other real positive is getting real data from the truck. We can see if it’s going over speed or identify any issues the truck or the operator may be having.”

The technology will also allow shift bosses to get a better overall picture of what is happening in the mine.

Stokes said the shift bosses could rarely get to every part of the mine during the shift.

“It’s about giving us visibility to react quicker to things in the operations.”

Another approach the company is taking is in the planning stages.

The company has introduced 721, a program that takes a miner’s three month plan and turns it into seven and 21 day plans.

“A lot of these things are about planning,” Stokes said.

“When you plan it, you do it – and have plans to check against too.”