The mining industry has been slow at adopting the latest management philosophies from other industry sectors, such as
manufacturing, and in retrospect, with good cause. With the plethora of three-letter-acronyms such as TQM, JIT, TPM and
now, BPR each touted as the panacea for profit improvement, you wonder if you must choose one or attempt to embrace
them all! In truth, each new insight into organisational behaviour bears some investigation. This paper looks at the
underlying principles and elements of successful change strategies, and how several mining companies, including coal
mines, in Australia, Chile and Canada, are applying these principles to their operations. These examples illustrate the need
to think radically, and to view mining as an overall process delivering value to the customer rather than a collection of
functional silos. They also show that often, a continuous improvement initiative is not enough when a fundamental
redesign, a paradigm shift, is needed for a performance breakthrough.