Navigating change in the Goldfields

Business brief
Alastair Reid
M&IS Executive General Manager

I was delighted to visit our Goldfields team this week and present them with the M&IS Teamwork Baton, in recognition of their collaborative efforts and adaptability to overcome adversity.  

As many of you are aware, last October BHP placed its Nickel West assets in care and maintenance. Around that time, Nickel West was our single largest customer in the Goldfields region, representing almost 50% of revenue, so this closure had a significant potential impact on our local operations. The team rose to the challenge and, through impressive collective efforts, was able to fill the gap that the Nickel West closure would create.

Rather than a few individuals, everyone played a part in navigating this change, ensuring alternate sources of revenue, and minimising the impact on our business in the Goldfields.

A defined business strategy in the region provided a solid foundation that enabled this success. The team were responsive and able to broaden their service offering to both new and existing customers, setting themselves up to take on and deliver more varied projects.

This included expanding to undertake construction work, such as the recent work on key upgrades to key facilities at Binduli Gold Mine.

There was a huge team effort involved in increasing tendering outputs, as well as expanding our surface coatings expertise to new clients whilst growing the team in the process. The scaffolding team increased their activity across more sites in the region. Similarly, the estimating team stepped up their outputs, whilst the mechanical teams continue to deliver great work promoting our expertise throughout the Goldfields region.

PM's, Engineers and Supervisors all rattled cages with new and existing customers and drummed up whatever suitable work was available, and the workforce team got very familiar with onboarding our people with new clients. The admin team persevered through some personnel changes and kept on top of everything like it was business as usual.

When workshop activity slowed a bit initially, our workshop fabricators had to go out to sites to fulfill roles, and in doing so further promoted the great skills that Monadelphous offers.

Congratulations to the Goldfields team – this is well-deserved recognition for all the work you have been putting in. The baton originated in our Kalgoorlie workshop, fabricated by the team back in 2018 – so I was especially proud to bring it back to where it all started.