In the current resources environment, where market factors dictate that a resources company bring a product to market as quickly as possible - the planning and implementation of a project is critically important. At times, the observed experience within the industry of how project pre-implementation studies are carried out demonstrates study execution quality issues. This in turn, reinforces why best practice project study plans can and should be applied.
There is an old adage about “setting it up for success”. With the advent of ever more challenging ore bodies and with that, challenging projects, this adage seems more important today. The industry now has to tackle the challenges from an in-ground resource and human resource quality and availability. In addition, projects are being pushed by market forces – market expectations and corporate promises. This means that in particular, the critical front-end work of carrying out efficient project studies is under pressure. This can lead to shortcuts being taken in traditional study programmes, resulting in suboptimal outcomes as well as increased study (and project implementation) costs, often due to repetition of work and the resulting inefficiency.
