Page 50 - Annual Report 2020

1.6.1 Our people continued

Case study:
BHP Operating System

The BHP Operating System (BOS) and the Maintenance and Improving car dumper dump time at WAIO
Engineering Centre of Excellence (MECoE) are two key priorities Adopting the BOS and leveraging the MECoE support has
driving exceptional performance and operational excellence enabled a sharper focus on sustainable performance and
through the business. enabled the teams across the WAIO supply chain to deliver
The BOS is a way of working that puts 100 per cent safety for record production in FY2020. The collective effort and expertise
our people, 100 per cent value for our customers achieved with across the WAIO Port operational and functional teams has
zero per cent waste at the centre of everything we do. It is a unlocked capability and reduced the car dumper dump time
business-wide philosophy that guides leadership behaviours by more than 7 per cent, delivering an improvement value
and practices, empowers our teams, builds capability and makes of 2.1 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa).
problem solving and improvement part of what we do every day. To achieve this result, BOS principles and practices were
Three principles underpin the BOS: serve our customers, pursue established as part of daily interactions with all of our frontline
operating perfection and empower our people. teams, which enabled effective problem solving, innovative
The MECoE was established in 2016 to achieve industry leading thinking and safe delivery of key metrics. This combined
performance and outright excellence in maintenance at BHP with support from the MECoE through the design of total
by delivering safe, sustainable improvement in our equipment equipment strategies, planning and scheduling services,
availability, reliability and cost. To achieve this the MECoE root cause analysis and data analytics capabilities continues
focuses on five core elements: establishing the BHP maintenance to improve performance.
way, achieving excellence in planning and scheduling, Escondida concentrator improvement
establishing total equipment strategies, instilling maintenance
as a profession and making life easier for our people. The combined work of our operations, the BOS and MECoE
has supported the delivery of historic throughput for Escondida
The advanced analytical techniques of the MECoE identify concentrators, averaging 371 kilotonnes per day throughout
what we need to work on to improve performance. By for the first time equating to 135 Mtpa.
integrating them with the BOS, we accelerate our cycle of
continuous improvement. Put simply, the MECoE provides By bringing together domain knowledge, machine learning and
us with the ‘what’, the BOS provides us with the ‘how’, and dynamic simulation modelling, variable drivers were able to be
a feedback loop is created. prioritised in order of value so that defect elimination, strategy
optimisation and standardised work practices were applied
During FY2020, the BOS and MECoE have invested in a series in areas that would impact performance, resulting in some
of value analytics projects to unlock capacity and improve significant outcomes.
performance at BHP. Two prominent examples of their combined
benefit to the business have been at the car dumper at our Port The combination of activity from the BOS and MECoE at WAIO
Hedland operations in Western Australia Iron Ore (WAIO), and the and Escondida demonstrate the significant value that can be
uplift at the concentrator at our Escondida mine. unlocked when they are united, which we are looking to
replicate in other parts of our business.

48 BHP Annual Report 2020