TY - THES

T1 - Operational Excellence and the Applications in Mining Operations

AU - Felsner, Anna

N1 - embargoed until null

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - During the time of industrialisation mass production with automated and work-sharing processes supported the reduction of costs and therefore provided a competitive advantage. Over time many companies caught up with this trend and produced their products predominantly in large quantities. The market conditions at that time, a limited amount of consumer and maximum sales volumes for the products, led to the saturation of the market. Thus, the supplier market turned into a demand-driven market. According to literature, two strategies can be applied to deal with this development: first the differentiation of products or secondly the improvement of products. Approaches for both strategies are summarized in Operational Excellence. This thesis comprises a general definition of the term Operational Excellence as well as a description of concepts, methods and tools developed and applied to achieve Operational Excellence in different parts of an organization. Based on a literature research the development and the implementation of these approaches are explained and further advancement like for example the combination of two methods is described. The second part of the thesis concentrates on Operational Excellence in the mining industry. Personalities in leading positions of the raw material sector were asked about their understanding of Operational Excellence as well as their experience in applying the different approaches. The conducted interviews have shown that the application can especially be found during the mining operation and the activities linked to it, like asset management and inventory management. After adapting the concepts to the specific circumstances of the raw material sector the implementation in these areas has been successful. Further it shows that many companies have not yet taken advantage of the potential to include Operational Excellence in the strategic formulation process and in this way to include it in every activity of a company.

AB - During the time of industrialisation mass production with automated and work-sharing processes supported the reduction of costs and therefore provided a competitive advantage. Over time many companies caught up with this trend and produced their products predominantly in large quantities. The market conditions at that time, a limited amount of consumer and maximum sales volumes for the products, led to the saturation of the market. Thus, the supplier market turned into a demand-driven market. According to literature, two strategies can be applied to deal with this development: first the differentiation of products or secondly the improvement of products. Approaches for both strategies are summarized in Operational Excellence. This thesis comprises a general definition of the term Operational Excellence as well as a description of concepts, methods and tools developed and applied to achieve Operational Excellence in different parts of an organization. Based on a literature research the development and the implementation of these approaches are explained and further advancement like for example the combination of two methods is described. The second part of the thesis concentrates on Operational Excellence in the mining industry. Personalities in leading positions of the raw material sector were asked about their understanding of Operational Excellence as well as their experience in applying the different approaches. The conducted interviews have shown that the application can especially be found during the mining operation and the activities linked to it, like asset management and inventory management. After adapting the concepts to the specific circumstances of the raw material sector the implementation in these areas has been successful. Further it shows that many companies have not yet taken advantage of the potential to include Operational Excellence in the strategic formulation process and in this way to include it in every activity of a company.

KW - Operational Excellence

KW - Bergbau

KW - Toyota Production System

KW - Total Productive Management

KW - Lean Management

KW - Total Quality Management

KW - Six Sigma

KW - Operational Excellence

KW - Mining

KW - Toyota Production System

KW - Total Productive Management

KW - Lean Management

KW - Total Quality Management

KW - Six Sigma

M3 - Master's Thesis

ER -