Be curious, not critical

12 weeks done. We now have 5 former students happily working in the thick of things on the front line of one very big and very busy landfill. During peak times, it receives about 1,200 tonnes per hour, that’s a truck every 40 seconds! 

There is a lot going on and it is a steep learning curve for any new operator. In the past, some new operators have struggled so we were approached to develop and implement a training program to give new operators the knowledge and skills to be able to quickly succeed and perform at a high level in a very demanding environment.

And so, the Women’s Waste Operator Academy was born. OSP developed a new site-specific program for the site. The program was focused on understanding environmental obligations, safety basics, the waste management process, and waste flow, machine fundamentals, and understanding how to use the equipment to maximise productivity while working within the machine’s capabilities and limits. One of the other goals was to give the maintenance team longer machine life while improving machine availability and increasing productivity for operations.

The training started with the theory. How to do the job. To understand how working slopes, waste layer thickness, and push distances all come together and play a part in the performance. Once we got the team out into the real world and things really started to fall into place as the trainees began really understand the theory and accelerated the learning process.

One of the best parts of the training was the first time one of the trainees started operating on the working face. At the start, there were some eye rolls from the more experienced operators, but she soon showed what she had learned and what she was made of, a few hours later one of the more experienced operators got out to talk to me. He said she was doing well. So well in fact that he was surprised as he had been pushing a load up a slope in his D8T, and he was passed by her with a similar load of waste. That’s when I knew the existing operators were going to take the new team seriously.

I was asked why they did so well, and the only thing I could think of is they were curious, not critical. They wanted to learn, to understand. The team kept an open mind, they did not shout down new or different ideas instead they gave them a red hot go. 

We could not have done this without Meldina Klehic from Cleanaway asking for our support, of course, the girls who were part of the academy. Additional trainers, Chris Nolan, John Merlo and Liz Spooner.

Our real measure of success will be the KPI we set for ourselves, no incidents, accidents, or machine damage in the first 3 months, we look forward to keeping you updated on how this turns out.