Find out why Mawsons quarry development manager Adrian Bull won the 2024 IQA Excellence in Innovation and Community Engagement award.
Every year, the IQA recognises an individual’s contribution to excellence and innovation in the quarry industry, including outcomes in community engagement and consultation.
The award, sponsored by Eltirus, can be for innovation in design, production, operations, automation, plant design, maintenance or processes as a single event or for a longer-term contribution to improvement over a period of time.
A key requirement is that the innovation should show measurable outcomes and the winners must be able to demonstrate engagement with peers, the industry and/or the community.
Quarry looks at how Mawsons quarry development manager Adrian Bull won the award.
Overview
Bull has been with Mawsons since 1996, after a career in heavy engineering and spending time in the mining industry. Starting at Lake Boga quarry as a fitter, he commended studies at Box Hill. In 1999, he became the quarry manager at Glenrowan quarry, where he was also responsible for mobile crushing. In 2002, he moved to Lake Cooper quarry as quarry manager until 2014 when he became the area manager for Central Victoria. More recently, in 2022, he took on a new role as drill and blast and pit development manager.
A long time IQA member, Bull started going to IQA meetings when studying at Box Hill. In 2003, he was involved in setting up the IQA Victorian sub-branch and ran it for some years. He has been involved in all facets of sub-branch activities and has been active in promoting the IQA
“Involvement in the IQA has been an important part of my development in the industry, as a manager and in making broad industry contacts,” he told Quarry.
Innovation
Mawsons general manager of quarries Dave Brown nominated Bull for the award. He told Quarry that Bull has been at the forefront of innovation for Mawsons over several years.
“Together with Cement and Aggregate Consulting (now Eltirus), he introduced the use whole of site drone survey, 3D loading tool guidance, GPS blasthole guidance and digital quarry development planning at Lake Cooper,” Brown said.
“These initiatives are now used across all quarries in Mawsons and are a standard part of how we manage this part of our business. It was this successful series of developments that saw us create a new role in the business – drill and blast and pit development manager, which is the role Adrian now occupies.”
“He has been instrumental in bringing Mawsons’ drill and blast, pit development, geospatial controls and stockpile management into the 21st century. This has included training dozens of employees, presenting at management meetings, establishing systems and reporting protocols that our external auditors consider first-class, covering a large geographic area in doing so.”
Drill and blast
Bull is also the central figure in Mawsons’ internal blast crew. The company decided that it could not afford to lose the capability to load and fire shots itself, so it recruited two supervisors to manage the drilling program and take on shot-firing where it was impractical to use Orica or if they were not available.
This gave the company a great deal of flexibility and helped the quarry managers to get far more involved in their own blasting results.
Brown said Bull has also taken on the management of its in-house surveyor, linking geospatial work, stockpile management, and drill and blast needs together.
“He works closely with operations, our resource development team, and also provides services to other departments in Mawsons as needed,” he said.
“I strongly believe that the approach Adrian and Mawsons is taking, not just in keeping up with modern technology, but also transferring traditional quarrying skills and knowledge to our newer managers, is critical in terms of future-proofing the business. These days, with so much focus required on compliance, reporting, training and other more administrative parts of managers’ roles, the traditional path of development for quarry managers has changed.
“It is important, however, not to lose the value of having skills in key areas such as drill and blast and pit development in-house, and the work Adrian is doing in his role – as well as delivering drill and blast outcomes to the business – is assisting Mawsons in maintaining this knowledge and capability.
“I believe this kind of approach is crucial across the industry, to ensure we don’t lose skills and experience, as the older generations retire.”
As well as preserving and passing on skills and experience, Bull is also ensuring Mawsons keeps up with technological and compliance developments, keeping us at the forefront of the industry.
He has championed developing the company’s new blast management system, which provides cloud-based blast management plans for each site. This method of record-keeping and reporting makes it very easy for quarry managers to manage their own site safety and compliance needs, when it comes to blasting. This makes it easy for anyone to come into a new quarry manager role, and quickly see where all relevant information is stored.
Bull was the central figure in driving this development, in liaison with Mawsons’ workplace health and safety team.
Brown said his dedication, enthusiasm, and attention to detail have made all the difference.
“In addition to all this, Adrian has, together with his two supervisors, provided shot-firing services internally to our Mawsons sites,” he said. “This has sometimes been done to fill gaps when Orica could not be available in the required timing, and sometimes to carry out more tricky or difficult shots that we wanted to treat in a very specific way. The added benefit of this is keeping shotfiring skills, qualifications and experience in-house, and getting quarry managers directly involved in their own blasting outcomes.
“He has also been instrumental in working with Orica to improve the standard of rock on ground services being provided to Mawsons sites.”
Community engagement
Bull has been Mawsons’ primary contact for community engagement for its new greenfield quarry site in central Victoria, a high-profile site with many interested local parties.
He has become the primary contact for community groups, and is highly regarded and trusted by them, so much so that when he changed roles and no longer had accountability for the development, he volunteered to maintain the community contact part of it.
Brown said this was crucial, as Mawsons recognises the importance of maintaining trust and openness with the community.
Mentorship
Bull’s role covers all of Mawsons, including all NSW and Victoria quarries, which amounts to thirty-four different sites. He is also heavily involved in major capital projects. A key part of his work is in upskilling the company’s quarry managers, training new drillers, and engaging with service providers.
Brown said consultation was one of Bull’s strengths.
“He can talk to people at any level, has huge industry knowledge and very detailed and broad technical skills. He has provided mentoring to quarry managers on how to develop their pits, how to prepare for new blasts, how to manage their stockpiles, and how to use the new technology we have for all this,” he said.
“He engages with our suppliers and service providers too, providing feedback, ideas, and direction for Mawsons’ business needs. He consults with management, provides support in multiple areas outside his role, and is a key member of Mawsons quarry management team.
“His energy and curiosity, combined with his skills and experience, make him the ideal person to be at the forefront of innovation and community engagement in Mawsons. He loves celebrating others’ success. He takes pride in passing on knowledge, and enjoys seeing our younger managers learn new skills, and have increased confidence in managing their sites. He keeps nothing to himself and passes on all these new developments to others. To me, this is a key factor in making these developments transferable – the drive, humility and communication skills of the person taking accountability for the transfer of knowledge.”
All Mawsons sites now use drone surveys, digital stockpile management and geospatial controls. This has a huge benefit in terms of compliance, reporting, accuracy, safety and productivity.
Three of Mawsons blasthole drills now use GPS guidance and automation, greatly increasing drilling accuracy and productivity.
Mawsons has fully compliant blast management plans across all sites, using a cloud-hosted database for record-keeping. This makes drill and blast compliance for quarry managers very easy, and the system has been given the green light by the NSW regulator.
The company also now has internal blast crew, ensuring that it has maximum flexibility and can deliver blasts to meet most timeframes, especially when Orica are not available. This ensures that we keep the core quarrying skill of drill and blast in-house within Mawsons.
Brown said a key part of Mawsons branding is “premium value”.
“That means that we offer our customers more than just quarry products. We offer products and services that are at the forefront of quarrying technology, with high quality, consistent outcomes, flexible solutions, and a strong focus on customer support,” he said.
“Adrian embodies all that premium value stands for, in his approach to his work. He has been the central figure in many different initiatives that are driving innovation at Mawsons and is an inspiring member of our team.” •
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