A few thoughts on innovation from Russell Mineral Equipment’s founder

This week Russell Mineral Equipment was announced as the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation’s first investee, with the NRFC taking a $40 million stake in the company alongside US-based private equity firm Resource Capital Funds.

Earlier this year, RME was a gold award winner in @AuManufacturing‘s Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers campaign for 2024. Below is a Q and A with RME founder, Executive Chairman and Chief Engineer Dr John Russell (pictured), originally published in May as part of the campaign’s report.

@AuManufacturing: What does your company do, in 50 words or less

Russell: Russell Mineral Equipment (RME) is the world’s leading Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) of grinding mill relining technologies and optimisation solutions for mineral concentrators. 

RME’s suite of innovative products and methodologies, known as the RME Mill Relining System, delivers safer working environments, shorter shutdowns, and higher mill availability for mine sites. 

@AuManufacturing: Who and what drives innovation at the company?

Russell: At RME, innovation is driven by a clear purpose: improving our Customers’ concentrator performance through innovative solutions which enable mill operators to work out of harm’s way. Mill relining is an important and necessary maintenance task, with some risks akin to underground mining. Crews can experience hot, dark, confined spaces, multi-ton suspended loads and mobile plant and equipment. Reducing mill relining time has enormous commercial leverage too, as every time the mill stops turning the mine stops earning. So innovating for reliability and productivity is essential, especially with rising demand for responsibly-mined metals like copper in the transition to net zero. Innovation at RME is focused on solving these critical global challenges.

@AuManufacturing: What is the process to understand what your customers want and deliver on this?

Russell: Mill relining is a complex and unpredictable logistical process, fraught with safety hazards and significant costs (consuming 2-5% of annual mill availability). Simply listening to Customer needs isn’t sufficient. Additionally, we dive deeply into a site’s specific challenges, bottlenecks and risks using filmed studies and discrete event analysis. With real-world data in hand, we model and propose tailored solutions that combine technology and process improvements. Each mill relining system is custom-engineered for a site’s specific SAG, AG, or ball mill application. Lean manufacturing has allowed us to produce a custom Russell Mill Relining Machine in as little as every seven working days at our Toowoomba facilities – a feat we consistently achieved during the peak of the mining boom. We understand and recognise the complexities of mineral processing operations, taking a whole-of-system approach, developing innovative implementation strategies that deliver upgrades over multiple planned maintenance windows, which avoid impacts to production. 

@AuManufacturing: What role does culture play in innovation at your business?

Russell: RME’s culture is the breeding ground for innovation. Not only are we incredibly passionate about what we do, we believe that our diverse, collaborative, and above all, safety-conscious environment is key. Homogeneous teams seldom spark innovation. That’s why we value the different perspectives everyone brings to the table. This cross-pollination of ideas allows us to achieve more together than any individual could alone. We also champion ‘PO’ (inspired by Edward de Bono), which encourages respectful spaces for lateral thinking and problem-solving. Even if a ‘PO’ does not progress, the open exchange of ideas fuels learning, cooperation, trust, and continuous improvement across our teams. 

@AuManufacturing: What are you currently working towards?

Russell: While innovation is a constant pursuit at RME, our most exciting project right now is the commercialisation of the ‘RME Advanced Technology Mill Relining System’. This world-first capability leverages robotics and inventive tooling to eliminate the need for crew to enter the hazardous mill environment during liner exchange. It also promises faster relining because, with no one in the mill, we can optimise machine performance. However, we recognise that a full robotic solution won’t be universally applicable, so we make our ecosystem ‘modular’. This gives our Customers optionality to progressively adopt faster, safer relining technologies that best suits their needs, future-proofing their operations

@AuManufacturing: What is something we need more of to lift innovation among our nation’s manufacturers? 

Russell: Australia possesses all the traditional levers to ignite manufacturing innovation, but RME believes a critical factor is addressing the engineering skills shortage. This is particularly acute in sectors like Mining and METS (Mining Equipment, Technology and Services). 

The world faces a dual challenge: meeting growing demand for responsibly-sourced minerals while transitioning to net-zero. This confluence of needs presents a huge opportunity for engineers to develop safe, efficient and economically-viable solutions. We need to amplify this message – thriving societies and a sustainable planet depends on a robust pipeline of talented and passionate engineers.

Picture: supplied

You can download the report from @AuManufacturing‘s last Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers campaign, originally published in May, below. It includes Q and As with some of the top ten innovators on the list, including Russell Mineral Equipment, Ampcontrol and BluGlass, plus profiles, commentary, and more. (A note that downloading the report will add you to the mailing list for or newsletter. If you don’t like it you can very easily unsubscribe when you receive the first edition.)

Australia’s 50 Most Innovative Manufacturers is an annual campaign by @AuManufacturing. The current version has been made possible through the generous support of Australia Wide Engineering Recruitment, TXM Lean Solutions, the Industry Capability Network, Bonfiglioli Australia, the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre and the SmartCrete CRC. You can nominate here (there is no administration fee) until March 15.