Mine Planning Officer at Tharisa

Role Context

Weekly Operational Planning

• Build, complete, own and present the responsible section of the weekly operational plan, ensuring alignment between the schedules and the WOP, STP and the practical execution thereof.
• Collate the relevant operational and Mineral Resources Management (MRM) inputs and verify the validity, accuracy and applicability of the information.
• Conduct detailed block and access designs and scheduling for the week - and short-term plan, for optimal pit deployment.
• Provide input into the reconciliation process, by collaborating and interfacing with the short-term planning team to achieve optimal alignment between the WOP and STP.
• Translate planning into practical pit operations and influence WOP practicality, ensuring the WOP is of a high quality and practically executable in such a way that interfaces are managed and that it fully supports operational requirements.
• Include the scheduling of RC drilling planning and the design of accesses and stockpile levels management into the weekly operational plan, to support the pit operations team in executing their activities according to plan.
• Draft and submit balanced ore-path and floor stock periodic plans, supporting the delivery of pit ore-flow and run of mine stockpile build-up that will meet and exceed both volume and grade plant feed ratio expectations and budget. 
• Conduct frequent pit visits to ensure the plan is relevant, practical and considers the physical pit-conditions and challenges in the field.
• Liaise with the mine operations team to establish and maintain detailed in-pit WOP information, ensuring planning activities are aligned with the status in the pit.
• Establish and maintain detailed WOP information and track Mine to Plan compliance, to ensure WOP mine plans meet and exceed the 85% compliance requirement.
• Reconcile actual production performance against planned targets to measure compliance, to support the achievement of actual performance to the 85% compliance requirement.  

Compliance, Risk and Safety

• Take guidance from the Short-Term Plan (STP), Medium-Term Plan (MTP) and the approved geotechnical parameters to ensure adherence to pit boundaries/limits.
• Monitor and maintain compliance of plans to the safety, geotechnical and legal requirements of the planning process to mitigate safety risks.

Continuous Improvement

• Use enhanced mine planning and execution techniques to improve company profitability.

Reporting

• Use daily production figures from the drilling, load and haul, bench preparation and blasting to compile daily reports.
• Draft and deliver mine planning reports and minutes to provide a view of all mine-planning activities, meetings and pit visits.

Resource Management

• Provide input into required changes in resources (financial or non-financial) to enable the achievement of team and/or own objectives.
• Determine resource needs of the team and/or own area of work to achieve business outcomes.
• Request and allocate required assets and/or resources for the fulfilment of work objectives to guarantee quality outputs.
• Monitor the use of assets and resources within the team and own area of responsibility, to ensure assets and resources are consistently and appropriately utilised and managed.
• Provide staff with day-to-day direction and tasks aligned with Departmental procedures, to enable the usage of less resources more efficiently. 

Stakeholder Relations

• Communicate with all relevant Departments on issues of the area of speciality. Liaise across the relevant Departments by engaging with the appropriate stakeholders to ensure all stakeholders remain abreast of Departmental objectives, any potential derailers are appropriately managed and duplication of work is avoided.
• Communicate with internal and/or external stakeholders, where required, to achieve work objectives and to maintain relationships.

Requirements

Qualifications:

• Grade 12 (NQF4)
• Diploma (NQF6) in Mining Engineering or Mine Surveying is advantageous

Certifications:

• Rock Breakers Certificate/Blasting Certificate is advantageous

Job specific experience:

• A minimum of between five to seven (5-7) years of experience in the mining industry, of which a minimum of three (3) years is on an opencast mine
• Proven mine design and planning track record and/or proof of mine planning software competency
• Software knowledge of mine planning and scheduling software such as Deswik or similar
• Operational experience in either the open pit and or underground environment up to foreman level is advantageous
• Experience with PC based mine planning packages and Microsoft Office suite including MS Projects and Deswik
• Strong 3D analytical thinking and spatial perception ability
• Experience/Exposure on MS Dynamics F&O, Reporting tools: MS Power BI