Skip to main content

Sudbury mining conference is all about sharing knowledge, finding solutions

Share

A conference this week in Sudbury called 'MEMO' (maintenance, engineering and reliability-mine operators) features top managers from area mining firms Vale and Glencore.

In total, around 400 people attended this year's conference in the city. The annual event is hosted by the Canadian Institute of Mining and is a way to learn and interact with others in the industry.

“We have people from the mines doing presentations or make themselves available to discuss better practices," said Christopher Marilley, of the Canadian Institute of Mining

"A lot of these companies have objectives, whether it’s in the environment or cost operations.”

A few of the main topics this year were safety and efficiency. Organizers said if you’re going to improve mining, you need to think first of worker safety.

“All tools, all implementations and best practices keep the people at the forefront of decision making so that you can make production more … cost-efficient," said MEMO organizer Shannon Katary.

"You have an opportunity to drive true innovation and change so that we can extract more out of the Earth and support our lifestyles for the rest of the global world.”

Day 3 of the conference kicked off with a panel discussion. Gord Gilpin, head of Vale's Ontario mining operations, said the conference is a good way to continue learning from one another

“We’ve got a lot of important challenges to sort out as an industry -- safety, environment, recruiting people is a hot topic that came up today as well," said Gilpin.

"It’s very helpful when we work with one another and learn from one another on these types of topics. (And) also meet some people and grow that network. The way to work through a lot of this stuff is with each other.”

Next year's event will take place in Saskatoon mid-September.

CTVNews.ca Top Stories

Stay Connected