From pit to Power BI: An operational reporting journey in mining

Right now, somewhere on your site, a haul truck operator is logging a load. Tray up, tray down, tonnage recorded. That data point joins thousands of others.

And somewhere in an office, your GM is staring at three numbers on a screen trying to figure out if you're going to hit production target this month.

Between those two points is the information triangle of operational reporting in mining. Data enters at the base, every load from every truck on every shift. As it moves up through the organisation, it gets aggregated, compressed, summarised. By the time it reaches the GM's desk, an entire operation has been reduced to a handful of figures.

When this works well, everyone sees exactly what they need to make decisions.

When it doesn't, those three numbers at the top are either meaningless or actively misleading and the poor bloke looking at them doesn't have the time to figure out if this is the case or not.

Everyone needs different stuff

The mistake some reporting teams make is thinking reporting is just about showing less data as you go up the chain. Stick it in a pivot table, roll it up, job done.

It's not that simple. Each level of the triangle needs information shown differently because they're making different decisions.

As a data analyst, we need to tailor the information given to the consumer in a way that helps them achieve their goals, not burdens them with digging through useless tables of data. Here are a few examples, that might relate to your site.

The operator

Wants to know what they're doing this shift. Which draw point. Which dump point. How many loads to target. They don't need a summary of fleet performance, they need to know where they're going today and what they are doing.

The supervisor

Needs to see how the shift is tracking. Are we ahead or behind? Who's having a shocker? Which truck's been sitting at the workshop for two hours? They need enough detail to act, but not so much they're drowning in truck-by-truck data while trying to manage fifteen people.

The mining manager

Operates primarily with exceptions and levers. Which shift is underperforming? Where's the bottleneck? Loading, hauling, or dumping? Less likely to have the time to look at a detailed breakdown of Truck 42 doing 18 loads instead of 20. They need to know if there's a pattern worth fixing.

The GM

At some point, needs to reliably answer one question: are we going to hit target this month, yes or no? Depending on the GM, they might want more detail. Maybe some trend lines. Maybe a variance to plan. But fundamentally, they need confidence that those three numbers actually mean something.

The point here is that it's the same data, just presentend in a way that means the most to a particular audience.

Give the operator's report to the GM and see what happens, I dare you.

Aggregation is translation, not compression

Here's thing: moving up the triangle isn't just about having less data. It's about translating data into the language each level actually speaks.

The supervisor doesn't need to see every load logged, they need to know if the shift is on pace. The mining manager doesn't need shift-by-shift breakdowns, they need to know which crews are consistently missing and why. The GM doesn't need to know why, they need to know if production will hit the number they promised the board.

Each translation has to be fit for purpose.

A grad engineer who started three weeks ago needs to look at their report and understand it without asking five people what it means. A superintendent with twenty years on site needs something that lets them pattern-match against what they already know.

Same data. Different translation.

You can't just hand them both the same Excel dump and call it reporting. (I mean, you can. People do. It doesn't work.)

What it looks like when operational reporting in mining actually works

When the information triangle is working properly, no one's scrambling when the boss asks a question.

The operator knows their target for the shift. The supervisor knows if they're on track before smoko. The mining manager knows where to focus without digging through four spreadsheets. And the GM can look at three numbers and actually trust them, because they know the data underneath isn't held together with duct tape and prayers.

The test is simple: when someone senior asks "are we going to hit target?" can you answer in thirty seconds?

Or do you need an hour, three phone calls, and a small panic attack?

Your numbers reflect your maturity

Here's something interesting that a friend taught me.

The numbers a site tracks at the top level reflect the maturity of conversations that site is capable of having.

You might have brilliant data collection at the base of the triangle. Every load, every truck, every shift. GPS tracking, automated dispatch, the works. But if leadership is only ever asking "did we hit tonnes?" then that's all the triangle will produce.

All that operational detail gets squeezed into one number: yes or no.

And that's fine — until it isn't.

Until you get blindsided by something the data could have told you, if anyone had thought to look. Maybe it's cycle time creeping up because haul roads are deteriorating. Maybe it's utilisation dropping because of a maintenance backlog no one flagged. The information was sitting there at the bottom of the triangle. But nobody built the aggregation to surface it, because nobody knew to ask.

Building a good information triangle isn't just about reporting. It's about building the capability to ask better questions — and getting answers before the wheels fall off.

The reality

Most sites have the data. The trucks are logging loads. The systems are recording shifts. The information exists.

The problem is usually in the translation layers. Someone built a report five years ago that kind of worked. It got copy-pasted and modified until nobody's quite sure what it's actually showing. Different people have different versions. The numbers don't match. And everyone's learned to just nod along in the production meeting and hope nobody asks follow-up questions.

Sound familiar?

That's normal. That's what happens when operations grow faster than the reporting structure designed to support them.

The fix isn't complicated. It's just deliberate work that nobody's had time to do: figure out what each level actually needs, build the translation layers properly, and make sure the numbers at the top actually mean something.

Then your GM can look at three numbers and make decisions instead of looking at three numbers and hoping.

If your production reporting takes longer to build than it does to read - or if you're not sure anyone trusts the numbers - that's fixable. We help mining operations sort out the data foundations so reporting actually works.

Get in touch and lets talk through what's broken.