HIGH PROFILE
year another welding robot will be added for work to fix frames to the booms .
Reflecting all of this , employment at Mine Master has doubled from 156 at the outset to over 300 today and of this the core machine assembly and machine service workers still dominate at 200 of the total , the rest being management and administrative staff . The proportion of female staff has grown to about 10 % and growing , with an average employee age of 42 . The company employs almost 100 people with higher education , including almost 70 engineers . The importance of Mine Master to the local community – the nearby village of Wilkow and the nearest city Zlotoryja plus the surrounding area cannot be overestimated . Mine Master also collaborates closely with the regional technical and vocational school in Zlotoryja in recruiting and training its next generation of workers ; and this training continues when they join the factory with dedicated mentors .
The event included the opportunity to sit down with Jerzy Nadolny , Managing Director – who helped found the company in 1993 – for his thoughts on the last 30 years of business .
Q KGHM remains your largest customer and a major part of Mine Master ’ s past and current history . Can you give a sense of the depth of partnership you have with them plus how Mine Master ’ s ownership and structure has evolved over the years ? A We have a very deep and long lasting relationship with them – I personally started with KGHM at their copper smelter way back in 1980 . Then I moved to their mechanical workshop in 1988 – the Lena Mining Facilities Works . At that time I began to look for foreign partnerships or joint ventures as at that time the technology within KGHM was still quite basic having been part of the Eastern bloc . After the first free elections in 1989 , I spoke to all the major OEMs – including Tamrock and Atlas Copco , but they were not interested in having a direct production facility in Poland – they only wanted to work through subcontractors . Only Boart Longyear responded positively – and ultimately KGHM signed a full JV agreement with them , forming Mine Master in 1993 ( then known as Boart Lena ) , with KGHM holding 49 % of the shares and Boart Longyear 51 %. KGHM of course gave access to their fleet needs and requirements but also to sales of Boart Longyear hard rock tools . Boart then acquired full control in 1999 . This was a strategic decision by KGHM to focus on their core mining and smelting business – though of course they retained their ownership of their internal mining equipment production arm , KGHM ZANAM , which is mainly focused on low profile loaders and trucks . Then our management along with GHH Fahrzeuge took full control of the Mine Master in 2006 . So this year we are celebrating 30 years of Mine Master . With Komatsu in the process of completing its acquisition of GHH , it has already been agreed that all of the shares in Mine Master not currently held internally will also pass to the management , which should be completed in early 2024 when we will be fully independent . Aside from that , we are continuing our business as usual and still plan to cooperate with GHH / Komatsu in a global market joint sales approach , just not as part of GHH Group as before . We are assembling the smallest GHH trucks including the 20 t class MK-A20 at our facilities in Wilkow and this arrangement remains unchanged ; in fact going forward it may be extended to other machines . Of course given this history we remain very close to KGHM , both in terms of its people and its facilities – including its key mining operations of Polkowice-Sieroszowice , Lubin and Rudna , and we have a major service facility in the Polkowice area and part of the Legnica Special Economic Zone – this is quite a new site , opening in 2016 and allows us to have spare parts , a sizeable workshop plus an office and training capabilities , all very close to KGHM ’ s mines . We have over 130 service staff linked to that facility , many of whom are mainly working underground on maintaining our machines .
Q What level of customisation has been made to allow your machines to handle the KGHM mine conditions and how involved have they been in
Mine Master Managing Director Jerzy Nadolny , along with Andrzej Czajkowski , Vice-Chairman of the Board receiving a gift from partner Padley & Venables at the June 2023 anniversary event machine development ? A KGHM ’ s mines are very deep so you are talking about high temperatures . The geology also means there is a lot of water present , so there is high humidity as well as some of the mine water coming from the roof causing very fast corrosion . So our machines have to be really robust . But they are modern and highly mechanised units so we also have to protect all the electronics . Every machine for KGHM has been developed and built according to their needs . But that is true of all of our customers not just KGHM – often we supply something specific or special according to the customer need , and this is something we are widely known for and respected for – we do not just provide off the shelf machines . Actually , the KGHM machines are so robust once we started exports in the early days we found they were in some ways overengineered for some other customers but of course this meant these units really surprised our new customers in terms of reliability and performance . The requirements of our export customers also led to new innovations that were not required by KGHM which has included twin boom , production and narrow vein machines as an example . And we have been really successful . We occupy a niche in the market but in that niche we believe we offer an unrivalled solution .
Q On that note what are the differentiating factors for Mine Master versus other big players ? A As a mid-sized company we remain very close to our customers offering a very personal service to a point where the largest companies I don ’ t think can compete today . We try to understand customer needs at a very detailed level . We don ’ t want to see a machine sale as just another order – we are never happy to ship a unit unless we know exactly their underground mining conditions and how exactly the machine will be used because we want it to perform exactly for the tasks it was designed for . We always talk to the operators about their needs as they are the ones using the equipment day in day out . And they have played a big part in helping us improve our machines over the years . While each machine is customised , to streamline production , the carrier we use for Mine Master units is common to our four highest selling models , which translates to 90 % of our production . This is also true of the majority of the components on the carrier with a few exceptions .
14 International Mining | SEPTEMBER 2023