REMOTE MINE SERVICES
In July 2017, Alliance Aviation celebrated its inaugural flights from Brisbane to Bundaberg, Gladstone and Port Macquarie in partnership with Virgin Australia. The two companies are among the leading suppiers of FIFO and charter flight services to the Australian mining industry
Trusted tenders
Paul Moore reviews some trends and new contracts in remote mine services, from camp wide contracts to FIFO and logistics
South Africa’ s Servest designs, builds, and operates camps as well as providing cleaning, landscaping, asset protection and other services for the mining, energy and construction sectors in an ever-growing number of African countries with major clients including Sasol and Glencore. Following a landmark black economic empowerment deal with investment Holding company Kagiso Tiso Holdings, Servest is also now the largest, majority black-owned facilities management company on the African continent.
The company recently announced the release of its 2017 South African Facilities Management survey that looks at trends, forecasts and predictions in the facilities management( FM) sector. Servest Group, with the support and endorsement of the South African Facilities Management Association( SAFMA), commissioned Knowledge Executive to manage the research on their behalf.
The report zones in on the latest FM outsourcing trends, the challenges and expectations between buyers and providers, progressive local and global innovations for facilities service delivery and the major game changers and outlook for FM services in South Africa over the next five years. And while it covers all industries that Servest supplies services to, a big part of this is mining.
It states:“ Respondents are more inclined to keep grounds maintenance, catering, security, office, estate and building management with their current suppliers. Reception / front of house services, project management, health and safety services, pest control, communications / telecoms and energy management face more uncertainty as respondents indicated that they will re-tender or re-scope these services.”
It adds:“ Facilities management outsourcing in South Africa is in good form with a considerably high number of end-users indicating that they still outsource more than half of their facilities. These organisations predominately outsource via single and bundled serviced contracts utilising one or more suppliers. Top FM services that are outsourced include ground maintenance, pest control, security, cleaning services and energy management. Almost half of the end-user respondents( 42 %) indicated that they will retender and re-scope their FM contracts while 22 % will stay with the same suppliers. Financial savings and greater flexibility are just some of the objectives that end-users are achieving with their FM services, which is why they rate cost and confidence in the team’ s ability as most important when evaluating tenders or bids. The good news is that end-users believe that their suppliers are successful in meeting their outsourcing objectives. However, there is room for improvement in providing better technical expertise and SLAs, reducing costs further and providing management information with service performance data, while mitigating risk.”
For the future, over 50 % of the end-user respondents want to return to in-house management or absorb facilities services into broader business process outsourcing( BPO). However, an equally large amount( 43 %) will continue to outsource their FM services. Service quality, access to technical expertise, reducing costs and the ability for end-users to focus on their core business will drive outsourcing in the next five years.“ Financial savings, service level improvements and the ability to self-deliver, all top the list of important criteria for successful client and provider relationships. Clients also
look for improvements in sustainability and inhouse quality, while placing strong emphasis on the need for providers to have access to best practice and technical expertise.”
FM service providers, consultants and endusers collectively pinpointed the need to improve communication, work together as a team and align strategies and plans to enhance outsourced relationships. Of interest was that FM service providers and consultants rated improving B-BBEE score cards( 99 %) and clarifying roles and responsibilities( 95 %) higher than end-users.“ End-users want a stronger focus on improving baseline costs( 75 %) and service level agreements along with key performance indicators( 63 %). Indeed, FM service providers and consultants will be challenged on several fronts to improve outsourced relationships over the coming years.”
Global, European and African nearshore outsourcing will increase in the next five years, while there will be moderate growth in total facilities management( TFM), integrated services and property services. Bundled services will increase substantially while single services will decrease.
Finally, the report notes six major game changers that will influence the FM sector over the next five years. They include: n Digitisation & Technology: with the adoption of new technology and innovations augmented by the digitisation and automation of FM services n Customer Experience( CX): that includes improved FM service delivery and providing more value across all spectrums of FM services n Cost Saving: which is highlighted as a major game changer and important objective throughout the survey n Knowledge Leadership: whereby end-users will look for more skills, training, knowledge transfer and smarter and empowered FM teams n Employee Experience( EX): that includes creating agile workforces utilising automation for mundane tasks thereby enabling FM managers to focus on more complex functions n Sustainability: to balance FM optimisation with sustainable systems and processes n Good Data: that will enable FM teams to analyse and interpret data in real-time and make better, informed decisions.
10 International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2017