Rapid maintenance programs for small minesites

I was speaking to the head of a small mining company today with a fascinating business plan.


Their intention is to purchase very small mining leases, preferably operating or past the feasibility stage, to rapidly have a cash generating mining asset. Profitable, although not rivers of cash. 


Reminded me of Wessex Water. Another profitable though not huge operation. Assets geographically distributed, with a need to see performance across the asset base, and small margins before unscheduled downtime can impact dramatically on profitability.


In small enterprises such as these, and countless others globally, they either go too big or not at all. 


They "over-capitalize" by installing systems that are too big, complex and require too many people to feed them.


Or...they do nothing. "it's too small", "We don't have any funds", "It all costs too much", "Just focus on production". Paralyzed into indecision by their limitations.


Fortunately, technology has changed the options that these companies have available to them. Only they aren't looking for them it would seem.


I have ranted here before about online systems, and will continue to do so until something better comes along. Particularly in small enterprises such as these.


Online CMMS means you instantly have a view of the asset / maintenance performance in every site, globally, with the infrastructure of a web browser. Not a bad start. 


And there are other online systems, such as the very powerful Google Docs, DimDim.com for communications and training, and a few other projects that are currently under development. (I have one or two being built right now)


There is simply no reason why these companies cannot be up and running within a few short weeks, with global infrastructure, global document management and collaboration, and global reporting processes. 


A few big company types will of course see this as lightweight, and not rigorous enough for "our"processes. And that may be fair enough...


But it is good enough for profitable, small enterprises to rapidly gain control over their physical assets, and start to put in place the sustainable, low cost processes they are going to need to manage marginal assets like this. 


Reliability for every company...imagine that.