JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africans should not give up on being the world's best gold-miners even though they have lost their position as being the world's largest gold producer, says Fever Tree Consulting head Simon Davies.

While it is unclear whether South Africa will ever get back to being the world's number-one producer by volume, there is nothing to say that it cannot be the world's best by value, says Fever Tree Consulting, which is 51% owned by the black investment company Shanduka Holdings, headed by Cyril Ramaphosa.

Among Fever Tree's specialities is operational improvement: "Particularly in South Africa, we find that frontline coaching is a very important tool with which mining companies can raise their productivity, by coaching lower levels of mine management.

"We doubled the number of metres per blast for one of our clients. All the productive effort was exactly the same, but suddenly they were getting double the output for every blast," Davies tells Mining Weekly Online.

Although the three-year-old Fever Tree is 100% South African-owned, Davies emphasises that it is international in its experience, with many of its 80 personnel having worked for top-tier global consulting firms.

The company provides tools to ensure sustainability and provides back-up coaching so that the improvements that it brings about are embedded in a way that they are not lost to corporate memory.

"We always work, not just on the technicalities of the problem, but also on organisational effectiveness. The skill kits we provide keep performance sustainable long after the consultant team has left the site," Davies says.

Even before clients commit to using Fever Tree's services, the consultancy sends in a team to arrive at performance baselines. On appointment, the results are then measureable against those agreed baselines.

Davies tells Mining Weekly Online that much analysis is needed to know precisely where to apply the pressure required for productivity improvement.

"Because we are upskilling and coaching at the same time, we put people on site to work with client teams, never for them, so that by the time we leave, they're ready to keep going without us," Davies says.

"Productivity lies at the heart of competition and is why world living standards increase. Nations, decade upon decade, learn to make more with less," he adds.

To watch a video of Mining Weekly Online's interview with Fever Tree's Simon Davies, go to www.miningweekly.com and click on "Multimedia' and then on 'Video Clips'

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