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COVER STORY
January 2016
MODERN MINING
19
AXXIS offers two-way
communication between
the blasting box and
detonators.
some areas increasing – our share of a declin-
ing market and we have a firm strategy in place
to cope with the downturn.”
Keenan, a Canadian, has only been with
BME for a few months, having taken over the
reins from his well-respected predecessor,
Francois Hay, in September 2015. He has a BSc
Geology from Laurentian University in Canada,
an MBA from Edinburgh Business School in
the UK, and has completed post-graduate pro-
grammes at Insead (at its Singapore campus)
and Harvard Business School in the US. His
background has primarily been in either the
explosives or petro-chemical industries, with
his most recent appointments having been with
Columbine Group in the US, Pacific Hydro in
Australia and Orica in Chile.
Although he has carried out assignments
in Africa in the past, his present position with
BME marks the first time he has been perma-
nently positioned on the continent. Already he
is impressed by what he has seen. “I’ve noticed
a tendency on the part of South Africans to
downplay their achievements and to assume
that they’re followers rather than leaders in
terms of technology,” he says. “I think they’re
selling themselves short. Certainly if we look
at the field of blasting and explosives, South
Africa is at the forefront of developments and
I’ve seen innovative and effective products and
systems at BME which I’ve seen nowhere else
in the world.”
Outlining BME’s current strategies, he says
a prime area of focus is customer engagement.
“We’ve been speaking to our customers to
gauge what they want from us and the mes-
sage we’re getting is that they want to have a
risk-free relationship with their explosives
supplier,” he notes. “Many of them are either
big companies, which have cut-back on their
in-house technical capability as a result of
downsizing and no longer have any significant
expertise internally when it comes to blasting,
while others are junior companies too small
to have had any blasting expertise in the first
place. Increasingly, they are looking to com-
panies such as BME to fill the knowledge gap.
We’ve always been strong on the technical sup-
port we can offer but now we’re going to put an
even greater emphasis on it.
“Our blasting services group, headed
by Tony Rorke, has a world reputation and
we also have best-in-class tools that we can
deploy to ensure that we achieve real down-
stream benefits for our clients. There are a
number of companies who can put explosives
in the ground but customers want more than
this and BME is primed to deliver.”
Keenan notes that another point to emerge
from its customer-facing strategy is that there
is a need for consistency of service. “We have
taken up this particular challenge and we are
determined to ensure that the BME experience
for customers is the same, regardless of their
size or their geographic location. They’re look-
ing for a certain outcome and we must be up to
the task of delivering that outcome, over and
over again, whatever the challenges we our-
selves face.”
He adds that just as BME is looking outwards
to its customer-base, so too is it engaging inter-
nally with its own employees. “They’re one of
our greatest assets with a vast collective expe-
rience which we can tap into,” he explains.
“So we’re asking them how we can be a better
company. We want them to drive the company
forward and this process has already started.”
Staying on the theme of efficiency, Keenan
points out that BME invested R200 million
into automating its bulk emulsion plants and
its detonator assembly facility in FY2015.
“Many companies cut back on investment dur-
ing a downturn but we see it as essential,” he
maintains. “We need to be lean and trim and
automation also drives improved quality.”
Reviewing BME’s technology lineup,
Keenan says the company is looking in par-
ticular at increasing the market penetration
of its AXXIS
®
digital initiation system which
– used in conjunction with BME’s industry-
leading BlastMap™ software – is capable of
achieving high accuracy blasts that far exceed
anything that can be achieved using traditional
non-electric detonator designs. “Many of our
competitors have digital systems but I think
AXXIS stands out due to its intuitive interface
which makes for ease of operation. We find that
once a mine has adopted the system, its per-
sonnel – after training by BME – find it easy to
use without the need for any ‘hand-holding’.
“We’ve been
speaking to our
customers to
gauge what they
want from us
and the message
we’re getting is
that they want to
have a risk-free
relationship with
their explosives
supplier.”