Rio Tinto has restructured the productivity delivery function within its technology & innovation unit, revealing a raft of new strategic infrastructure and asset management initiatives.
The mining giant said it had “recently transformed” the productivity delivery team, giving it a “new structure and deliverables”.
A Rio Tinto spokesperson did not respond to iTnews’ questions.
The new structure creates a ‘flagship programmes’ area that is “about expediting change and delivering productivity improvements into the business through a partnered approach”, the miner said.
It also creates a second area that is defined as ‘discipline leadership’, which aims “to identify and embed world class practices to improve group productivity, and to improve discipline health and performance in the long term”.
The company has particularly high aspirations for the output from the discipline leadership function.
Specifically, it is expected to “lead to a material impact on performance or risk” and to potentially make waves outside of Rio Tinto itself.
“Acknowledged contribution outside Rio Tinto, in the marketplace, would demonstrate (and may even quantify) that T&I is genuinely adding to Rio Tinto’s performance and total shareholder return, or that ‘discipline leadership’ provides a model which others would want to adapt and adopt,” Rio Tinto said in Canadian job ads posted last week.
Rio Tinto is presently recruiting multiple roles in an overarching project management office for the productivity delivery function.
These roles can be based in Australia’s T&I presence in Perth or Brisbane, or in international operations in Salt Lake City and Montreal.
In addition, the miner is also recruiting for a series of specialised infrastructure and asset management roles, suggesting a new front in the company’s long-time, technology-heavy efficiency drive.
One of those roles is a new ‘global chief of infrastructure’, based in Montreal, which appears to feed into the ‘discipline leadership’ area of the revamped productivity delivery team.
The new chief will be tasked with translating broader T&I strategies and operating models “into a comprehensive discipline leadership strategy”.
A second set of roles are being recruited for a previously unknown initiative called the ‘World Class Asset Management Flagship’.
The flagship is said to be “responsible for establishing and maintaining world class performance so that asset management becomes a source of sustainable and considerable competitive advantage”, according to separate job ads.
A range of roles inside the flagship, from programme management to advisory roles in capability development and asset lifecycle management, are being sought.
Recruitment closes on October 16.
