At OceanaGold, achieving our strategic goal of safely and responsibly delivering gold production involves more than just keeping equipment in good condition. It requires our teams having access to the right information at the right time so they can make better decisions, manage risk, and capture value across the business.

At our Haile Gold Mine in South Carolina, USA, Senior Business Analyst Brad Ulloa is playing a key role in that effort for our site Maintenance team. Through several data-driven initiatives within Mobile Maintenance, he has transformed how the team monitors maintenance performance, manages costs and plans its work.

Maintenance teams generate significant volumes of data every day. At Haile's Mobile Maintenance department, around 4,000 work orders were created in the first quarter of the year. While this information contains valuable insights, extracting meaningful trends from thousands of work orders and transactions can be challenging. Recognising the potential for continuous improvement, Brad set out to transform the way the team managed maintenance using data and insights. 

Building Smarter Maintenance Insights

After Haile implemented its Asset Management Framework (AMF), Brad identified an opportunity to better analyze recurring maintenance activities and isolate repeat work orders. He designed a reporting and dashboard system that sorts and filters work request data into categories tailored to the needs of the Mobile Maintenance team. By reducing duplicate work orders, the team eliminated unnecessary administrative effort and generated over US$350,000 in cost savings during the first quarter of the year.

"This is what I do every day," Brad says. "I look at any process I come across and try to improve it. When you can put costs on the table, that's what gets people's attention."

Brad also helped shift maintenance reporting beyond traditional lagging indicators such as equipment availability and Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF). To provide a more forward-looking view, he developed a Planning Schedule Tracker Key Performance Indicator report that measures how effectively planned maintenance work is scheduled and executed, giving leaders an early indication of future equipment reliability.

Improving Cost and Performance Visibility

Brad has also strengthened financial visibility within the department through dashboards that provide near real-time insight into work order activity and performance. His work has improved the tracking of capital and operating expenditures, giving leaders a clearer understanding of costs across fleets, assets and general ledger accounts.

As the maintenance team's dedicated analytics resource, Brad's role extends beyond dashboard development. He supports financial forecasting, capital project tracking and cost management while helping ensure maintenance and capital spending is accurately recorded, allocated and reported.

"The dashboards give you a very big picture of what is going on, what you need, or what you do not need," Brad says.

By connecting operational performance with financial visibility, Brad's reporting tools help maintenance teams optimise resources, improve planning discipline and reduce operational risk. They also support more informed workforce planning decisions based on evidence rather than perception.

Creating Long-Term Value Through Continuous Improvement

For Matt Warner, Asset President at Haile, Brad's contribution demonstrates how continuous improvement can create tangible value for the business.

"Brad's work has improved our understanding of maintenance performance, planning and cost management. The insights he provides help our teams make better decisions, improve reliability and allocate resources more effectively, supporting our commitment to safely and responsibly deliver gold production," Matt says.

As Haile continues to strengthen its maintenance strategy, Brad's work is helping to create value by ensuring maintenance resources are used where they deliver the greatest impact.