EMBRACING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
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SSR MINING: LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY AMIDST TRANSFORMATION IN THE MINING SPACE WRITTEN BY
SEAN GALEA-PACE PRODUCED BY
JAMES BERRY
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SSR MINING INC.
DAVID THOMAS, DIRECTOR OF IT AT SSR MINING, DISCUSSES HOW TECHNOLOGY HAS BECOME AN INFLUENTIAL COMPONENT TO OPERATIONS SINCE FIRST BEING EMBRACED IN 2013
A
s a firm that has undergone significant transformation over the past few years, SSR Mining knows first hand the impor-
tance of embracing the latest trends in order to stay ahead of competitors. With the increasing influence technology has had on industries the world over, 04
SSR Mining has come a long way since it first began to leverage new software and processes in 2013. David Thomas, Director of IT at SSR Mining, believes that, due to its smaller stature in comparison to bigger companies in the region, his firm has utilised this to its advantage. “The key benefit of how we operate is that we’re smaller. Leveraging infrastructure, such as cloud services that we don’t have to invest large capital in, makes us nimbler,” he says. “This means that a few years later, if we want to change and do something that’s slightly different because of new technology, we have the capabilities to do that. If you compare that to bigger companies, a lot of them have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in capital to build infrastructure, however, then they’re locked in. The landscape has changed for us smaller companies as we can get in
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SSR MINING INC.
“THE KEY BENEFIT OF HOW WE OPERATE IS THAT WE’RE SMALLER” — David Thomas, Director of IT, SSR Mining
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CLICK TO WATCH : ‘MARIGOLD MINE’ 07 there and do what we want and move
205,000 ounces of gold in 2018.
with the times – I think it means we’re
The Seabee Gold Operation produced
really lucky and in a really great place.”
over 95,000 ounces of gold in 2018,
Based in Vancouver, Canada, the
and Puna Operations achieved
mining firm focuses on the operation,
commercial production in December
acquisition, exploration and development
2018 and produces silver.
of precious metal resource properties
Thomas points to SSR Mining’s
in the Americans and oversees three
ability to combine a proactive and
producing mines: Marigold in Nevada;
reactive approach that differentiates
Seabee Gold Operation in Saskatch-
his company from its rivals. “We’re
ewan; and the 75% owned and
quite fortunate because we can be
operated Puna Operations joint
followers and leaders,” explains
venture in Jujuy Province, Argentina.
Thomas. “In 2013, we invested a little
Since its launch in 1989, the Marigold
bit of money into the cloud despite our
mine achieved production of over
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SSR MINING INC.
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just one mine at the time. Our move
we saw back then was the fact that we
towards the cloud gave us the opportu-
could seize the opportunity to move
nity to move around our technology
into the cloud. When we acquired our
for various projects, such as predictive
second mine operation, Marigold, we
analytics or general artificial intelli-
were positioned to start moving that
gence (AI) and machine learning (ML)
operation’s IT into the cloud straight
type projects.” With mining often
away. During the acquisition, we began
considered as one of the slower
to transition from the previous owners’
industries to adopt new technology,
technology to the cloud. As Amazon
it wasn’t until 2013 when SSR Mining
and Azure introduced new things, we
really put its foot down towards
were able to take advantage of some
digitalisation. “Back then, we had no
of those new tools and features in our
tech. We had an email system and
other operation too.”
that’s pretty much it. But, one thing
Looking back to how operations
were previously conducted prior to new technology being introduced, Thomas acknowledges the challenges he’s faced over the years. “Previously, we didn’t have an Operational Excellence team like we do today,” he says. “Making that connection with the business was a big challenge because we’ve got IT-orientated people and then at the other end of the scale are mining-focused people, too. For us, we had to bring those teams on the extreme ends together and talk about the challenges. For example, our Marigold mine has a dispatch system,
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
David Thomas, Director of IT After six years of Civil Engineering and running a high-rise building computer design department in the mid 90s, Thomas graduated from the University of Technology in Sydney with an Engineering Degree and a Masters Degree in Engineering Management. After graduation he quickly moved into the Information Technology field in Melbourne Australia, working in the bill payment and consulting industries, before moving to Canada in 2005 where he led numerous IT departments and IT Consulting teams in mining, shipping, forestry and finance. With a deep background and education in both Engineering and Information Technology, Thomas provides both IT leadership and strategic IT transformation for SSR Mining Inc.
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SSR MINING INC.
$400mn+ Approximate revenue
1946
Year founded
14,000+
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Approximate number of employees
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Manage, Solve, and Deliver I.T. We take pride in putting our customer service front and foremost by creating simple solutions for complex connections. Discover your solution
similar to a taxi that tracks the destination of where you’re going. It’s important that we implement the right software that will enable us to improve. We had to have a much more conducive approach, and being able to do that gave us the ability to enhance our processes and automate emergency systems so that, if there’s a problem out on site, they can press a button and get support.” Having partnered with tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS), Thomas believes what
“ L EVERAGING INFRASTRUCTURE, SUCH AS CLOUD SERVICES THAT WE DON’T HAVE TO INVEST LARGE CAPITAL IN, MAKES US NIMBLER” — David Thomas, Director of IT, SSR Mining
makes a successful partnership is the 13
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SSR MINING INC.
ability to understand what the other
and it offers us a much larger vendor
expects. “A good partnership will
footprint, too. With AWS, we would get
involve mutual communication at all
involved with the cyber types when
times and a joint ability to deliver
it comes to industrial.”
something that works well together.
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With a determination to not rest
I know when it comes to some of these
on its previous successes, Thomas
smaller AWS or Azure partners, we
affirms SSR Mining isn’t at the finish
would choose a vendor that has the
line yet and he still considers it a small
skills and abilities internally to do the
and medium-sized enterprise (SME),
job, but that can also align with our
despite revenues of over $400mn in
nimbleness,” he explains. “A lot of our
2018. “In mining terms, our revenue is
infrastructure dovetails into Microsoft
relatively small. I think once you get
and AWS. Amazon can give us a nice
into the $2-4bn range of market
little angle in terms of IoT endpoints
capitalization, that’s when you can be
considered a big company. In terms
workforce is a key aspect for success,”
of market capitalization, we’re currently
he notes. “It’s about ensuring strategic
around $2bn so we’re not quite there
objectives are aligned with the
yet. I almost consider us like a shopping
operation base and being able to work
advert – we do more for less.” Looking
closely with the teams that we have
to the future, Thomas has clear ideas
recently developed in the last two to
about how his organisation can
three years, such as the Operational
continue to thrive in the mining space
Excellence team. We need to evolve
over the next few years and beyond.
as well as help with sustainability in the
“I’m sure the gold industry will drive
next couple of years.”
the success of the company through mergers and acquisitions; however, in terms of our operations, I believe our workforce and the safety of our 15
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SSR Mining Inc. T +1 604 484 8219 www.ssrmining.com