CANNINGTON
The Mining Advocate | May 2008
25
Nurturing newcomers
Service crew member Jason Horan was one of 12 recruits to graduate recently from Cannington’s Mine Training Program. Photo: Stewart McLean
BHP Billiton’s Cannington operation boasts a four-month training program to prepare inexperienced recruits for mining roles.
1700 applications were received, including some from South America and India. “We were looking for people who could show commitment to the program and to the company afterwards, because it is a retention strategy,” Ms Cramb said. “Some of the recruits will probably rise through and become supervisors and superintendents and some might even go on to do engineering degrees. “Others are more than happy to be operating the trucks because they’ve come to Cannington for a quality of life. “Some have young families and they’ve taken the opportunity to provide for their families and have quality time with them as well.” The second intake will begin training in July and the third intake is due to be advertised through standard recruitment channels towards the end of 2008.
It’s not easy being green, but Cannington’s Mine Training Program (MTP) gives newcomers a good start at the north-west Queensland operation. The new program offers inexperienced people a fourmonth course in the basics of operating underground and brings them to Level One operator capability before they are dispersed to crews. It is a recruitment and retention strategy but has also been recognised as an important safety measure. “A large part of the program focuses on safety basics - rather than just getting recruits on site and letting them loose, they are told why we do things a certain way and not another way, and we involve subject matter experts from each department on site,” said mining training
co-ordinator Karen Cramb. “Safety and health components of the MTP include the BATS program (Better Attitude Towards Safety), environmental awareness, health monitoring, dust and lead management and risk and hazard identification and management.” Mine training and services superintendent Michael Arnold said recruits studied the theory and practice of mining basics such as ground awareness, manual scaling, hand-held mining and explosives awareness. They were also instructed in the installation of air, power and water services and the operation of light vehicles, haul trucks and integrated tool carriers, he said. “With the vehicles, the recruits do a bit of training on the surface in safe, dedicated training areas to get familiarised with the equipment and then
they go underground with the trainers and spend some time with them,” Mr Arnold said. “We slowly introduce them to the activities that the crews are doing so they get used to the surroundings, and then we gradually integrate the recruits within the crews – under
supervision - after a period of time.” Twelve recruits recently graduated from the first intake of the program and are now part of the mining crews. Ms Cramb said they considered themselves lucky to be part of the pilot program after
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