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MBA Full Time students from the UWA Business School recently spent four days in the State’s remote Pilbara region, getting to grips with large-scale mining operations.

The MBA Study Tour, which encompassed visits to major resources companies, gave students the opportunity to learn about operations management from industry leaders.

Destinations included: Rio Tinto’s Cape Lambert Operations in Karratha; Woodside’s Pluto LNG Plant and Karratha Gas Plant; Burrup Peninsula; Port Hedland Authority; and BHP Billiton operations in Port Hedland.

MBA Full Time student Rylan Nielsen previously worked both in the United States and in Australia, including in the mining industry. But the four-day Pilbara tour, Nielsen says, gave him a rare opportunity to step away from the office and gain a greater insight into the on-the-ground logistics of a mining operation.

“As a former desk-bound employee in a large mining infrastructure project, I really enjoyed the opportunity to see the logistics of the projects I worked on up close. Their absolute size was astounding and seeing the machinery in person was quite impressive,” Nielsen said.

“Having the opportunity to speak with representatives from various resources companies in the Pilbara also displayed how the lessons we learned from our classes such as economics, operations management and organisational behaviour are applied in the ‘real world.’

“There were a number of lessons from classes that would directly apply here, but the most important one for me is that WA’s iron ore business is really just a logistics industry disguised as mining. There’s plenty of red dirt across the globe, the trick is getting millions of tons of it onto boats efficiently.”

Along with mining operations, the MBA Full Time cohort spent time with the traditional owners of the land, visiting the Burrup Peninsula rock art, hearing from Aboriginal elders, and learning about the social responsibility programs of mining companies.

So how did the MBA Full Time cohort – after spending eight months’ locked in classes together – survive a week away?

“I feel the most important aspect of the trip was to spend a bit of time with the cohort away from university to really get to know each other,” Nielsen said.

“We have spent a great deal of the past eight months together locked into study rooms, but this was our first chance to really unwind together outside of the intensive MBA program.

“A memory that I’ll always take away from the trip was waiting for the bus to depart, kicking the football around the parking lot with my classmates. I feel the trip greatly enhanced my UWA MBA experience by getting me closer to the resources industry, the traditional owners of the land and my fellow classmates. As with the UWA MBA program as a whole, this trip has definitely left me with a new way of seeing things.”

The MBA Full Time Pilbara Study Tour was supported by ATCO Australia, BHP Billiton, Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA (CCIWA), Hedland Port Authority, Rio Tinto and Woodside.

The study tour took place from 28-31 July 2015.

Read more about Rylan Nielsen’s experience here .

Media references

Karen Della Torre (UWA Business School)                    (+61 8) 6488 8538
Verity Chia (UWA Business School)                             (+61 8) 6488 1346