Challenge
At an operating mine, technology decisions have immediate production consequences. Ian’s hardest challenge at Boddington was building shared understanding: helping operational leaders understand technology dependencies, while helping technical teams understand what an outage meant for an autonomous fleet.
Contribution
Ian managed the Site Technology Team at Newmont Boddington, overseeing delivery and support of Caterpillar MineStar Command for autonomous haulage. He managed a team of 20 and served on the site leadership team.
He stayed close to the technical team at decision points, helping people weigh technical choices against business and production consequences. His approach was to develop the team’s judgement while leaving execution with the people responsible for the work.
Outcome
Boddington implemented a fully autonomous fleet of 36 trucks. In its 5 October 2021 announcement, Newmont described commissioning as the industry’s fastest.
Ian’s contribution was leading the site technology team and overseeing technology delivery and support within the wider implementation programme. Commissioning was followed by continued ramp-up towards full productivity.