Nisha Nijhar

5.01 AM

It’s a Monday! Up and ready to fly in to work today.

I am on a 5/2/4/3 FIFO (Fly-In-Fly-Out) roster – which goes five days on shift (Monday to Friday), two days off shift (Saturday and Sunday), four days on shift (Monday to Thursday), three days off shift (Friday to Sunday), and repeat; in short, I am back home in Perth every weekend and every second Friday which is great!

I always say goodbye to my sleepy dogs before heading to the airport.

5.24 AM

I am a fan of watching the sunrise on my way to the airport. 

My workdays are 12 hours long – 6.00 am to 6.00 pm; my flight times are accounted for on the days I fly in and out at BHP, which is great!

On this day, my flight departs Perth at 6.20 am and arrives at Newman at 8.05 am – I will be enjoying a plane nap during this time.

8.14 AM

Arrived in sunny Newman and straight onto the bus with everyone else – I enjoy listening to podcasts during this commute.

We will be stopping by one of the Villages (these are FIFO accommodation sites in/around Newman town) to pack our food for the day, then off to site!

8.31 AM

Crib pitstop.

Fun fact: ‘Crib’ is a common term for snack/lunch used commonly amongst Australians and New Zealanders (seemingly more prevalent in Mining and Construction industries).

I usually pack the following for a day at work:

• Sandwich for breakfast (today it was a Tomato and Mozzarella Salad Roll) – I usually scarf this down from here to site on the bus as I wouldn’t have eaten anything yet for the day and am usually very hungry by this time.
• Main meal of some kind for lunch (today it was Cauliflower Curry and Rice).
• Two pieces of fruit to snack on (today it was a Green Apple and a Mandarin).
• Another sandwich (today it was a Ham and Cheese Toastie) and a salad for an early dinner (today it was a Garden Salad with added Cherry Tomatoes) – I tend to practice Intermittent Fasting between 3.00 pm and 7.00 am.

9.15 AM

Made it to the office – this is me at my desk, where I spend most of my time at work on BHP’s Newman West mine site.

Time to check my emails – I try to keep my number of unread emails at zero by the end of each work week. As I flew back to Perth on Thursday the previous week, I opened my email inbox to ~50 emails this morning. The mine site operates 24/7 so no chance of coming back to zero emails on a Monday.

In my Mining Equipment Maintenance (MEM) Reliability team, I am currently the Reliability Engineer for all Ancillary Equipment across Newman Operations (this covers both BHP’s Newman West and Newman East mine sites).

My role’s purpose is to execute defect elimination processes, provide specialist advice and undertake reliability improvement focused on the end-to-end maintenance system (inclusive of procedures, work quality, processes, and materials) – specifically for the ancillary mining equipment; these are the loaders, graders and dozers used by our Mining teams.

One of my core routines to contribute toward me executing my role effectively is reviewing data from the previous week to put a Weekly Report together every Monday – doing this weekly allows me to make observations on how we are trending toward meeting our FY22 Performance Output KPIs, which are primarily linked to machine availability. The goal is to improve reliability of all machines across the ancillary fleet, such that they are available as and when required by our internal customers, which are our Mining teams.

After I sift through my emails, and put my Weekly Report together, I decide which key areas to focus my attention on for the week and onwards. The Weekly Report gets sent to my MEM Ancillary Execution teams – these are the teams who carry out the maintenance required on the machines I am interested in improving reliability of. They know the machines well and I rely on their expertise and knowledge to assist in maintaining reliability of the machines.

1.12 PM

After lunch, I venture out toward the Mining Equipment Workshop (MEW), which is a 5–10-minute walk from my office building, depending on how quickly I opt to move.

It is top of 42 degrees (Celsius) in Newman today – Summer is well and truly upon us.

I always bring my wide brim hat and water bottle with me when heading outside.

1.18 PM

Looks like a busy day in the MEW with all bays occupied.

We have a line-up of track dozers (these are used to push large quantities of earth material).

We have a grader (this is used to create a flat surface using its blade – typically to assist in creating roads for dump trucks to drive in and out of the mining pits on) in the image below, with a dump truck getting a shower in the background.

I like to spend as much time as I can in the MEW with the Execution team to check in on how the machines are doing and take on any feedback which they have for me at the time – especially if there are any early warning signs they have picked up while carrying out maintenance on the machines, which I can investigate further to ensure we have appropriate controls (increased oil sample monitoring is a good one) put in place to avoid any unplanned breakdowns.

I also take this time in the workshop with Execution to ask questions and learn more about the machines, to improve my knowledge of them, which assists me in carrying out my job more effectively.

5.58 PM

After some more desk work and a meeting back in my office building, my work for the day is done!

Some rain clouds have rolled in from the hot day – the image below is the view from the bus window on the way back to my Village.

“Looks like interesting cloud season is upon us” – observes someone from my team.

Fun fact: Summer is Cyclone Season up in the Pilbara region of Western Australia where Newman is located.

6.29 PM

Caught sight of a faint rainbow in the distance as a light shower came through on my way to the gym for a yoga class, as seen in the image below – I always look forward to this class which runs between 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm on Mondays; it is a great way to start the week for me.

8.30 PM

After a shower and short video chat with my partner, I am in bed and ready for a good night’s rest to do it all again tomorrow.