I recently spoke to a group of mine managers about why their job is so hard. The answer isn't geology. It isn't equipment. It isn't people. It's arithmetic. Here's what most boards don't realise: the KPIs they cascade down are mathematically incompatible. A typical GM is handed targets that demand: → 75-85% utilisation on drilling → 75-85% utilisation on trucks → 75-85% utilisation on the plant → Hit monthly tonnage These aren't made-up numbers. Industry benchmarks push utilisation into this...

In my previous article, I made a point that stings a bit: You can feed what you think are P50 assumptions into a stochastic engine… and discover that your “P50” completion date behaves more like P02 in the real world. The tool hasn’t failed — it’s calmly telling you the system you’re planning is physically incapable of delivering the promise with any reasonable confidence. That’s why some executives feel burned by “better planning” investments: they improved the modelling, but didn’t change...

In the previous post , we looked at why so many mine plans break by Wednesday, and how Flow (TOC)  changes the physics of the system so plans actually have a chance. We showed that when you stop “balancing capacity” and instead: Put the true constraint  at the centre, Protect it with buffers and protective capacity , and Align KPIs to Flow rather than local utilisation, You move from brittle, KPI-driven chaos to Superflow  – higher tonnes, at lower cost/tonne, with less firefighting. We also...