Outstanding Achievements Recognised
The CEEC Board congratulates CEEC Chairman Joe Pease and his colleague Dr Bill Johnson on the outstanding achievement of being recently recognised as inductees into the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame.
Recognised for their contribution to the industry through their roles in tackling a pressing issue with developing the IsaMill from concept to commercialisation, they were selected for this prestigious award in the Comminution category.
Other Comminution 2016 shortlisted nominations included Klas-Göran Eriksson and Tage Möller (Metso Megaliner), Manfred Freissle (first modular synthetic screen deck system and co-founder of Polydeck Screen Corp) and Washington Samuel Tyler (Tyler screens and founder of Haver & Boecker Canada).
Dr Bill Johnson (far left) and Joe Pease (left) are pictured here receiving the award, which was sponsored by Gekko Systems. They are joined by Paul Moore, Editor at International Mining (far right), and Sandy Gray (right), Co-founder and Technical Director at Gekko Systems who CEEC also congratulates for receiving the award for Concentration.
The 2015 Comminution award was made posthumously to Fred Bond for grinding circuit design, through the Bond Grindability and Bond Work Indexes. All 2015 and 2016 inductees have made exceptional contributions and were presented with their awards at the Gala Dinner in Denver, Colorado during SME week.
Awards Innovation Inspiration
When we recently talked with Joe Pease on how in the industry CEEC and all of us can support innovation and step-change improvement, he said:
“People in our industry are passionate, environmentally aware and want to help society. Contrary to common misperception, I don’t think the industry is “conservative” – it simply requires changes to be rigorously designed, robust and to integrate with existing equipment. “Fail fast” might be okay for software, but in complex, highly interconnected, long-lived mining operations there are few “point solutions” and failure is not an option. Genuine industry change comes from deep operational understanding, meticulous design and dogged perseverance. Unavoidably, this is a long game, but once demonstrated genuine innovations are quickly adopted by industry”.
In the case of Bill and Joe’s contribution to IsaMill, a pressing issue needed to be addressed. Fine grained ores at Mount Isa and McArthur River could not be economically treated with existing technology. Bill Johnson identified a conceptual solution to ultra-fine grinding and led the team to develop that concept into a robust full scale technology. Joe’s team integrated that technology into existing operations at Mount Isa, requiring attention to flowsheet development, flotation, froth handling and dewatering. The advances enabled the development of the McArthur River Mine. Joe subsequently led the global commercialisation of the IsaMill and supporting solutions, allowing global operators to successfully integrating it to achieve step changes in performance.
Reporting on how the new technology came about, International Mining noted that Bill and Joe recognised the orebodies “needed this technology for their survival and development, and it needed to work. No other technology could grind economically to the sizes that were required to liberate the minerals.” More details here.
Inspiration to See Through Innovation
With the uniqueness of each orebody, high capital costs and complex long-term interactions in minerals operations, it is a daunting journey to take a new idea from concept to success. The achievements celebrated in the International Mining Technology Hall of Fame serve as an inspiration and a template on how to achieve genuine change – with vision backed with meticulous detail, thorough engineering, and dogged perseverance.