Shutdown Partners provides experienced leadership and practical support for high-stakes mining operations.
Our consulting is led by a mining executive with more than 25 years of senior leadership experience across maintenance, engineering and operations. This includes building complete maintenance and engineering organizations for greenfield mines, leading teams exceeding 600 personnel, and supporting an 85 Mtpa copper operation with a balance-sheet value exceeding USD 10 billion.
We focus on the operating disciplines that influence safety, availability and unit cost: clear governance, reliable maintenance systems, disciplined execution and verifiable operational information.
Why Mining Leaders Partner With Us
We bridge the gap between theoretical schedules and field-level reality. By implementing rigorous governance and clear verification practices, we help establish reliable operational data as the basis for decision-making. Whether we are deploying Sights or providing expert guidance, our focus remains the same: Safety, Availability, and Unit Cost.
World-Class Scale: World-class scale: Experience building the complete maintenance organization for a USD 10+ billion, 85 Mtpa greenfield copper operation.
Strict Cost Discipline: Demonstrated success in reducing maintenance unit costs by 16% (e.g., from €4.46 to €3.75 per milled tonne) while simultaneously increasing MTBF.
Proven Availability Benchmarks: Delivered greater than 97% plant availability at a major copper operation and increased availability at a legacy concentrator from the low 40% range to above 95%.
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Our Services
Interim Maintenance & Operational Leadership
Executive-grade leadership to stabilize operations, drive performance turnarounds, and manage critical transitions.
- Executive operational leadership: Experience leading organizations exceeding 600 personnel, together with General Manager responsibility carrying full operational, P&L, safety and people accountability.
- Performance turnarounds: Increased average availability at a legacy concentrator from the low 40% range to above 95% by rebuilding its maintenance practices and addressing a significant maintenance backlog.
- Maintenance systems and governance: Experience developing maintenance strategies, deploying Pronto, IBM Maximo and JDE, and managing spare-parts procurement exceeding USD 120 million.
- Operational performance: Delivered greater than 97% plant availability, MTBF of 168 hours, MTTR below 30 minutes and breakdown work at or below 5% at an 85 Mtpa copper operation.
Operational Readiness Audit
Independent verification for the high-risk transition from construction to steady-state production.
- Independent Readiness Verification: Objective audits of maintenance systems, spare parts procurement, and technical staffing before first ore.
- Commissioning Governance: Establishing the workflows and reporting structures required to move from mechanical completion to commercial production on schedule.
- Proven Ramp-Up Results: At a USD 10+ billion greenfield copper operation, commercial production was achieved one month after commissioning the final milling train.
- Systemic Readiness: Delivery of operational readiness exceeding 167,000 person-hours for large-scale project ramp-ups.