Coaching and growth options supplier Comodex Consultancy, in partnership with the College of Johannesburg (UJ) Mining Engineering Division, on April 17 hosted the pioneer Mine Mentor MineReady Expertise Extravaganza competitors.
The competitors was held on the Sibanye-Stillwater mine simulacrum facility on UJ’s Doornfontein campus. It goals to organize college students for the true calls for of the mining trade, exposing them to security, stress, decision-making and execution.
Talking to Mining Weekly on the occasion, Comodex MD Tanya Graham defined that the opponents got here from Comodex’s Mine Mentor Change Programme, the place college students had been taking part for the previous few months. Graham was additionally the founding father of this programme.
For the competitors, 20 college students are divided into 4 groups, which compete towards one another by rotating between totally different stations within the mock mine, which simulate real-life situations.
These embody air flow, load and haul, a brief assist station and a digital actuality blast wall.
Groups are awarded scores for every station, with first, second and third place awards up for grabs. Graham knowledgeable that college students can profit from quite a lot of sponsorship prizes from the totally different firms taking part within the competitors.
Graham defined that from the mentor perspective, original-equipment producers (OEMs) and supplying firms that provided mining homes had been introduced in to handle the dearth of publicity that college students had been presently grappling with, owing to the restricted availability of trip work and graduate programmes, moreover others.
“We accomplice with all these OEMs with their tools and applied sciences, and implement it into the mock mine, in order that the scholars can get pre-exposed to those issues.
“We strategically take a look at firms which are keen to assist growth and new growth within the college students’ careers, in addition to the place these college students will in the end transfer over after they begin working within the trade,” she outlined.
Graham stated that the partnership with UJ allowed the programme to make use of the mock mine facility to coach college students. Furthermore, a few of the taking part firms had been helping with upgrading the location.
The primary sponsor for the occasion was rotary and directional drill rigs producer DESA Drilling and Gear. Talking to the publication was DESA director Johan Fourie, who echoed the purpose concerning the hole between college training and real-world coaching.
“What we’ve discovered within the trade is that when our graduates, engineers and mining college students get into the world of mining, they’re nonetheless worlds aside from the truth of what’s taking place within the mining sector.
“Once we get these graduates from the college, when they’re going into the mining surroundings, they nonetheless lack numerous ability and numerous information. For us, it’s to carry them in and supply them with that publicity,” he identified.
Fourie highlighted this as a perfect alternative to carry college students and firms collectively. “This permits us to teach the way forward for the nation in taking the appropriate choices; and for them to know what they’re learning, what they’re doing, and what they’re going to contribute to the way forward for mining,” he averred.
DESA may also look to bolster its involvement by permitting college students to go to its workshops and offering extra underground publicity for them as effectively.
Graham referred to as for extra mining trade firms to return on board and take part in initiatives, together with offering website visits, monetary assist, tools demos, workshop partnerships and others.
