MEC Mining – Delivering Sustainable & Superior Mining Options
The world has developed loads for the reason that Industrial revolution by way of coal mining, contemplating it to be the first power supply for industrial areas and transportation. However in the whole revolution until date, the first supply of power stays fixed, which is Coal.
With the invention of recent applied sciences, the coal mining trade has grown in capabilities overlaying all of the features of exploration and mining actions.
Within the 17th century, the primary coal mining experiments had been carried out, and since then, there have been fast modifications within the mining course of. Automated instruments with rising applied sciences are being built-in within the current time to remodel the way forward for the mining trade.
An Australian-based International Consulting Agency, MEC Mining, began utilizing automated instruments and new applied sciences by implying AI within the mining trade to offer well-placed assist to their shoppers by remodeling their operations.
Regarding Advancing Sustainable Mining, MEC Mining is offering new, cleaner, and extra environment friendly strategies of operations, as that is the way forward for mining to attenuate the environmental results.
With the management of Christofer Catania, CEO, he states concerning the founders Daniel Chippendale, Simon Cohn, and Ted Boulton implying first-hand data of the mining trade and the challenges homeowners encounter whereas implementing a challenge as a result of they had been mining engineers with sensible expertise.
Once they based MEC Mining, they created a workforce that was targeted on talking with and dealing along with shoppers to present probably the most individualized options to every problem.
So let’s unfold the journey of the founders in MEC Mining and be taught extra about their expertise via the interview highlights beneath:
Please describe your agency intimately.
MEC Mining is an Australian-based, world consulting agency that focuses on mine technical providers capabilities throughout the challenge life cycle, from exploration and early-stage growth to mine closure and rehabilitation. Our Geotechnical Engineers, Mining Engineers, and Geologists assist shoppers from each open-cut and underground mining throughout a broad vary of commodities.
What was your inspiration behind venturing into the mining trade?
As mining engineers with real-world expertise, our founders Daniel Chippendale, Simon Cohn, and Ted Boulton, had a first-hand understanding of the mining panorama and the pitfalls that homeowners face in executing a challenge. When establishing MEC Mining, they constructed a workforce specializing in speaking and collaborating with shoppers to ship the best-tailored resolutions to every drawback. This has remained the corporate’s imaginative and prescient and mission.
Inform us about your organization’s journey within the mining sector.
Established in 2005 in Brisbane, the corporate, which initially provided technical assist to Australian mining corporations inside coal, has since grown in response to demand from shoppers regionally and internationally and now providers each metalliferous and coal mining organizations. In 2021, Chris Catania was appointed Chief Govt Officer as a part of the corporate’s organizational re-structure to facilitate MEC’s accelerated development trajectory. That development included the creation of advisory and geotechnical enterprise models and the institution of workplaces in Perth to higher serve our Western Australian clientele.
Earlier this 12 months, MEC Mining additionally acquired Built-in Geological Mining Providers (IGMS). The established agency, based mostly in Fremantle, Western Australia, additional bolstered our rising capabilities to cowl all features of exploration and mining actions.
One other initiative of which we’re immensely proud noticed the creation of MEC’s Mining Graduate Program, which fosters and helps new graduates of their careers with us. We additionally not too long ago welcomed our trade partnership with AusIMM, which can additional advocate for finest practices and technical excellence within the sector. An actual dedication to ongoing studying sees us internet hosting common technical talks to assist and promote finest practices and technical capabilities throughout our workforce. This not solely enhances our workforce’s private development and data however value-adds to the trade when our consultants share this data with shoppers.
What had been the preliminary challenges you confronted whereas venturing into the mining trade?
As a core workforce with glorious trade connections, we rapidly established reputations as educated and dependable consultants amongst our shoppers and, importantly, glorious communicators who had been keen to ‘get their fingers soiled to unravel shoppers’ issues. However, like many others, the corporate confronted the volatility of the trade and needed to develop into adept at being versatile to assist the various calls for of shoppers. It was our success on this space that inspired and enabled firm development.
What are the USPs that spotlight your model/firm’s uniqueness as a number one title within the mining area of interest?
Our price proposition extends from our core values of high quality, affect, and relationships. At MEC, we’ve got a workforce of progressive, artistic thinkers whose broad spectrum of expertise and experiences complement and assist one another and ship most profit for our shoppers. Our workforce members have been chosen and developed as specialists of their discipline and are thought of amongst the most effective within the trade. They arrive from various backgrounds and convey a ardour for steady studying, each from one another and from the initiatives through which they’re concerned. Their dedication to delivering worth past shopper expectations is a novel high quality and is on the core of our workforce.
No matter place, supervisor, or CEO, all enter just isn’t solely valued however invited as a result of communication lies on the coronary heart of what we do. Listening to our shoppers, listening to shoppers, and responding somewhat than reacting to their issues or imposing options, means we ship and develop enduring relationships.
As an skilled skilled, what would you prefer to advise the budding aspirants keen to enter the mining sector?
Aspirants are coming into an thrilling and essential trade. In our Graduate Growth Program, we advocate a holistic method with a 70:20:10 system:
- 70% of studying occurs on the job, e.g., challenge work, day by day duties, job shadowing
- 20% of studying occurs via others, e.g., supervisor/mentor assist
- 10% of studying occurs via formal studying, e.g., workshops, programs (formal and on-line)
How do you envision your organization’s operations with the rising applied sciences and automatic instruments which are revolutionizing the mining trade?
Our workforce is happy by the burgeoning new applied sciences and the implications of AI for the way forward for mining and is hungry to discover methods it will probably affect the way forward for mining. Which means that we’re well-placed to assist our shoppers as they think about if, when, and the way they’ll embrace the brand new applied sciences to remodel their operations. Certainly, our consultants are usually not solely already engaged in these discussions however are delivering on-line classes to disseminate details about the right way to combine rising improvements into mining technical service practices at the moment.
To be Designed Individually
Advancing Sustainable Mining
There’s a consensus that Local weather Change is the #1 strategic menace to our mining trade. It’s essential for gamers to know the altering paradigms round this concern to make sure that they not solely have continuity of operations via unstable climates but in addition have a robust understanding of how the stakeholder expectations are altering and the way they have to reply.
Sustainable mining sooner or later would require gamers to attenuate their environmental and moral footprint via decarbonization, water and waste administration, and forging robust relationships with open and clear communication channels throughout indigenous communities, authorities, traders, in addition to communities in most of the people.
However, as with all important change, shifting behaviors to realize environmental and social governance would require supportive mechanisms to allow the transition and an excellent diploma of resilience. The journey to realize ESG pointers additionally must be outlined as a part of an organization’s long-term function and its financial case. It’s essential to combine sustainability into each worker’s job, together with the corporate board. The monetary advantages of conservation have to be nicely communicated so that every particular person sees environmental sustainability as not solely a enterprise requirement however as a private duty. The strikes will encourage larger transparency and accountability from the trade and a extra developed and open engagement with the general public.
Already there are quite a few official and trade assets being made obtainable to maneuver to sustainable mining practices, and it’s clear that, when applied, the advantages to workers, communities and the planet can be there and never essentially on the expense of productiveness or profitability.
MEC Mining is already offering assist to shoppers who’re proactively planning, and the overwhelming sentiment is one in all positivity in embracing change. The completely happy collision of this transfer with the expansion of recent applied sciences implies that AI, EBV, and hydrogen autos, for instance, will present new, cleaner, and extra environment friendly strategies of operation for the sector. And, whereas price is an inevitable and essential consideration, small incremental modifications will ship leads to the primary occasion.
