LMR Experiences
Read about some of our consultants’ experiences on different projects around the world.
Northern exposureWhen I packed for Labrador City, Canada I assumed it would be cold considering it was January. My immediate associations with this sprawling country are: Mounties, maple syrup and snow. I checked the weather on the internet and sure enough there was snow, plenty of it, and no shortage of minus figures on the thermostat. Our first introduction to the cold was waiting for the courtesy bus outside the airport in Montreal, a pleasant minus eleven to break us in gently. I checked the internet again at the hotel to see what the temperature was in Labrador and knew I was in trouble. |
Meeting Sir RichardWhat a surreal day! Richard Branson was everything and more than I expected. Our project with Virgin lasted for approximately six months and I hoped that in that time I would get to meet Sir Richard. Who would have thought I would finally meet him on the last day of the project. Sir Richard was in the hangar filming a commercial and the hangar was inundated with people bustling around making sure things were kept on schedule. Red Dog but no MandolinI'd been in Karratha for a couple of hours when I first heard of Red Dog. For those who do not know the legend of Red Dog, he was a Red Cloud Kelpie, similar to a sheepdog, but one with a desire to travel. He would hitch rides on buses, trucks and Utes all around Western Australia, spend a couple of weeks with a family and then move on to his next destination. Going undergroundI had been in Australia for two days having left my family in the UK to assume my role as the Managing Director of LMR Pty Ltd. I was not expecting to find myself 800 metres underground talking about boggers and crushers! My experience at Toyota has helped me enormously when facing complex organisational issues and I imagined applying Lean techniques to mining would be no different but a mine is still a mine. The only Toyotas in sight are the ones shuttling people to and fro on site. Termites ruleI took this photo on my third trip to the Weipa mine - part of the Rio Tinto Aluminium operation. It is in the far north of Queensland, on the Cape York Peninsular pointing towards Papua New Guinea. Rio Tinto Aluminium have a bauxite mine here and are currently implementing Lean Manufacturing. |