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1. Introduction
With the end of the super cycle from 2002 to 2010 and collapse in profitability, there is intense interest across the industry in reversing the excesses of the 2000s. Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) have been acknowledging to investors that poor productivity performance must be addressed (AusIMM Bulletin, 2015). The mining industry started to struggle with volatility and market uncertainty. Higher costs combined with low demand threatened capital project delivery. Typically, lower cost jurisdictions remained no longer lower cost. Demanding rising taxes price, mounting government interference, growing community expectations and risk of corruption became common. To counter these pressures, companies started giving ground, postponed/cancelled projects, halted construction in certain regions; to secure financing and searching started seeking out pre-emptive mergers for more effective ways to realize short-term investor returns (Deloitte, 2012). The mining industry has started facing a range of economical, technological, social and environmental challenges all impacting on productivity and sustainability (Bearman, 2013 and Prior et al., 2012). Productivity boost is required to regain ground lost over the super cycle or activities of mining, to continue to innovate to recover lost competitive advantage and to counteract rising real wages (Mitchell and Steen, 2014). The risks themselves have evolved greatly over the year with the prolonged commodity price dips which have thrown up many issues for the miners. The need for sustainable and enduring productivity improvements remains vital for survival and prosperity and, although some work has been done on it, there is still sizeable scope for improvement (Ernst and Young Global Limited, 2015). One thing is clear – mining requires far more than good financial performance to realise value in a sustainable manner (Jock O’Callaghan, Global Leader, Mining & Metals, Australia, PwC, 2019). The super cycle (from 2002 to 2012) altered the deoxyribonucleic acid of mining companies to adapt the processes, performance measures and culture solely toward growth. Boards and CEOs are now realizing that regaining lost productivity and gaining new ground is critical for long-term profitability and achieving an adequate return on capital employed, and it requires a whole-of-business response (Ernst and Young Global Limited, 2014). The mining industry comes with its fair share of challenges; from scarce resources to uncertainty around commodity prices, miners are always...