AAOM Handbook

c. in a procurement and supply environment; stocktaking, contract compliance assessment and turning of bearings on warehoused spare equipment. From this definition of Service work it should be obvious that setting a Service strategy is a process of risk management. It follows then that in order to effectively set a Service Strategy it is first necessary to understand the threats that may exist or arise in or around a process. 3. Support Work – activities that predominantly serve the purpose of improving the effectiveness or efficiency of a Process. That is, Production and Service work can proceed without effective Support work, but the outcomes and or cost may not be optimal. Many of the elements of the Operating Model are Support work. These include Setting Performance Targets, Setting Production and Service Strategies, Setting an Operating Master Schedule, Setting an Expenditure Schedule, Approving Work, Planning Work, Scheduling Work, Measuring results and applying Analyse and Improve. All of the above, except Measurement and Analyse and Improve, are preparative activities, completed in order to set up the Resourcing and Execution of the Production and Service work of the process for success. We could still continue to mine, process, maintain and supply without effectively implementing these activities of the Operating Model, and in fact, highly reactive operations do. However, the performance of the process will be far from optimal. Measurement and Analyse and Improve are also Support activities, but of a feedback nature, since they provide the data and approach to improve the process design, strategy, execution or resourcing. The Support activities of the Operating Model can be applied equally effectively to a diversity of processes, e.g. mining, mineral processing, maintaining or procurement and supply processes. By definition, a threat has potential to cause harm, either to communities, employees, the environment or the process performance. It is not possible to produce a zero risk situation, hence, setting a Service strategy must start with defining the level of risk that the stakeholders in any situation consider acceptable. The acceptable level of risk is shaped by many factors, and it is not equal for all people in every situation, and will change over time. For example, one survey in a western society revealed that on average this group felt that a 1 in 10,000 risk of being killed in a car accident, a 1 in 100,000 risk of being killed at work, and a 1 in 1,000,000 risk of being killed at home were acceptable. A Service strategy may be applied to any activity, workplace, equipment or material that is utilised in a process, and to the commercial, natural and social environments related to the process. Materials science has defined a set of mechanisms by which material failures can be categorised. When looked at from a boarder context it can be observed that, with some adaptation, these can provide a set of threat types that could be useful in considering probable threats across many types of processes: • Stress - materials science subdivides this into catastrophic overstress that produces sudden failures (e.g. fracture), prolonged high stress that produces creep deformation and prolonged cyclic stress that produces

© McAlear Management Consultants 2006

Operational Planning: Set Service Strategy

Updated: August 2018

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