Work Organisation for Attractive Mining : Lean Mining and the Working Environment

Attractive mining workplaces are good, safe and healthy workplaces. They are also workplaces that the workforce of the future wants to work in. As skilled miners and engineers are already scarce, this is important both for today and for the future. But future of mining will also be subject to increased international competition. In attempting to become more competitive, many mining companies turn to rationalisation, looking to both rationalise their production and organisation, as well as to optimise their processes. Work organisation is important in both rationalisation and providing attractive mining work. Therefore, a Lean Production philosophy is investigated for the organisation of future mines. The aim of this paper is to investigate to what extent Lean Production can be used to organise for attractive mining. To do so, it first need to be defined what attractive mining work is and to what degree it can be influenced by work organisation. A short insight into the production concept that is Lean will be given as well as a review of how Lean Production is discussed and utilised in mining today will be given. In conclusion, a summary of Lean Production’s potential to realise future, attractive mining is given.Godkänd; 2015; 20150729 (joeloo