The team at Commit Works have been implementing Short Interval Control (SIC) systems for over 20 years in mines, workshops, and factories.
The central idea behind SIC is that when supervisors are more AWARE of how their process is performing during the shift, then they will be able to ACT to keep the process on course to hit its target each shift.
The idea is simple, right? Get supervisors to check at targets at regular intervals throughout their shift. Then, have them act to improve the situation if they are off track. In reality, however, the success of SIC depends on multiple factors.
What’s in the SIC sandwich?
Whether it’s mining or another industry, there are three key ingredients that go into Short Interval Control. We call it the SIC sandwich.
- The top piece of bread should be an agreed and a realistic frontline plan for all work that the supervisor is responsible for.
- The centre (filling) is the tool supervisors or crew use to record (in short intervals) whether they are on track or not.
- The bottom is the method for knowing how much ore, cubic metres, drill metres, work orders, or widgets have been moved or completed at points throughout the shift.
Each of these elements makes the supervisor more AWARE of the performance of their process compared to the agreed plan for the shift. Given this awareness, the supervisor must then ACT appropriately to bring the process back into control and ideally describe what actions they took in a shift report.
The top of the SIC sandwich is the frontline planning and scheduling (or work management) system, which takes plans from systems like SAP, Deswik, Xact, MS Project, rosters, and leave and service schedules and makes them into a coordinated plan that can be committed to and executed on the shift. Most operations use spreadsheets and whiteboards to do this.
The centre (sandwich filling) has, for a long time, been A3 sheets of paper for supervisors to complete at two- or three-hourly intervals during a shift. In general, supervisors dislike these tools and seldom complete them properly or sustain them after consultants have left. More recently, some major mining firms have attempted to build software tools that supervisors can use in the field. Usability and connection issues have prevented most from being success.
The bread on the bottom used to be provided through paper truck counts or radio calls but, more recently, has relied on fleet management systems (FMS) to give up-to-date information about the measurable raw tonnes, metres, cubic metres etc. coming off each machine. To be successful, the data needs to get from machines to the supervisor quickly. In a small opencast mines can achieve this by the supervisor standing on the highwall to observe operations. In a complex underground mine it could require a well-designed system of sensors, tags and communications infrastructure.
Why most SIC sandwiches fail
In our experience, most SIC sandwiches don’t work because of weakness in the top two layers.
Without a reasonable and agreed shift plan, the crew doesn’t have realistic targets to aim for, so there is no point breaking those targets up into smaller intervals to track against. “But”, you say, “we have the weekly plan (from Deswik, EPS or Xact etc.) which sets the targets.” A weekly production plan target divided into 14 even shifts is a convenient and easy shortcut. But this approach is destined for failure because it doesn’t take into account variability in the workplace. Supervisors often have to cope with changing conditions, equipment maintenance requirements, sick leave and more.
Dividing the week up into shifts without taking all the other work and conditions into account means the supervisor and crew will never have a shift plan that actually makes. Low or unachievable targets will be prevalent. Unplanned service or sequence work or machine maintenance will make the plan impossible to execute.
Sending a crew to work over and over again with a plan that doesn’t make sense, means they’ll likely lose respect for the plan (and their leaders), choosing instead to do things their own way.
Making SIC work
The holy grail of SIC is a single system that brings all planning information into an integrated shift plan. This plan can be discussed at weekly and daily commitment meetings and:
- reviewed, adapted and committed to before the crew go to work
- used to assign work to people
- used to brief the crew at pre-starts/line-ups.
The same system can print or deliver the plan to supervisors or crew on a mobile device at the face. Supervisors or crew can “close off” tasks in short intervals during the shift. The control room, general foreman, shift boss, undermanager etc. and planners all know the right work is being done.
Integrating with fleet management systems brings real-time data back to the supervisor. This happens directly in the tool, or through regular radio calls to check on progress. By the end of shift, supervisors or crew close out most tasks and submit shift reports in app. A quick conversation around a touchscreen is enough to close out the shift.
Collected data ends up in simple reports for use in daily review meetings to identify variances and plan corrective actions. This data is then available to business improvement people for analysis and continuous improvement work.
Commit Works has the only enterprise-quality system that makes this possible. Operations can implement CiteOps in a matter of weeks and it fits easily into operational expense budgets.
Global examples
Anglo Dawson OC, whiteboard daily planning meeting to set targets for the shift, paper based A3 SIC sheets, radio calls to each machine and supervisor at 3 hour intervals to say whether they were on plan or not.
Glencore Sudbury, UG Nickel mine planning development sequence work and tracking actuals from the face using an offline app.
Rio Kestrel, Fewzion work management planning system, crib room PC for entering actuals data, view of SCADA system and work orders from trades to tell how shift was progressing.
Anglo, Zibulo, Fewzion work management system, underground WiFi phones with a Fewzion SIC App to record actuals at the face.
