A passport to higher hoisting intelligence

As miners around the world work to decarbonize their operations, modern hoisting solutions are a vital part of extracting the critical minerals needed for the energy transition, often requiring mining deep underground. Smart minds from all over the world are essential to drive success, sustainability and safety, which is the thinking behind ABB’s Hoisting Young Engineer Exchange program, which is fast-tracking global experience for its newest hoisting engineers.

The international exchange was an attractive prospect for Australian Aime Parker when she joined the team of hoisting engineers in Brisbane. While studying for her electrical engineering degree Parker did an internship in the ABB sales team. Now a fully fledged engineer she was ready for the field – about a year after rejoining the Australian team as a hoists engineer she was sent to Montreal, Canada on the exchange program.  

She was soon in the middle of the action on a mine site. “I was sent to Val-d’Or in northern Quebec where ABB was doing the cold commissioning for a new hoist at the Agnico Eagle mine,” says Parker. “It was the first time that I’d been able to be part of the operation – in the hoist room I sat in the operator’s chair as the driver and made the drum spin forward and backward. Because it’s cold commissioning there are no ropes or weight, it’s just the drum spinning freely, but it was still a very cool experience to see and also hear it all. Then we went through fault-finding and the technical nitty gritty which was a real highlight.”

To ensure real-world experience for the young engineers as they expand their hoisting technology capabilities ABB’s leaders designed this talent program to be customized in line with each country’s teams, projects and customers.  

Parker found it a perfect fit for her during her three months in Canada. “I would receive guidance on the work to be done, what the team wanted to achieve and the correct process – obviously safety is a major priority – and then there was an element of ‘Now just go and do it’,” she says. “That was perfect for how I like to learn – the best way is to get your hands a bit dirty and figure it out.”  

Understanding how things work in a practical way has been a central part of Parker’s learning all her life. “My dad’s an electrical engineer, mum’s a mathematician and my brother’s also an engineer,” she says. “I’ve always had an inherent love of maths, science and technology.”  

She started her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering but after a year decided it wasn’t for her. “Electrical engineering came a lot more naturally for me and ticked a lot of boxes for things I’m interested in, including hobby electronics,” she says.

In 2020 Parker jumped at the chance to take an internship with the ABB sales team. “My dad told me he did a stint in sales when he was starting his engineering career and that it was a fantastic way to get to know the products and the industry,” she says.  

For 18 months she worked three days a week while studying and her colleagues noticed her smarts from the start. She loved how it broadened her mind further around her passion for electrical engineering.  

“At university it was all very technical – a lot of maths, electrical drawings and it’s easy to go down the engineering rabbit hole,” she says. Spending time on the business side rounded her out. “I got to see the background of how an order comes in, the full cost model and other little things that I wouldn’t have even known existed without that experience. It was good to be more customer facing and learn about those relationships and how it all comes together.”

Parker’s rotation to Canada was for 13 weeks over the height of summer. “ABB put me up in an apartment in downtown Montreal which was walking distance to everything, including the metro, which I took to the office,” she says. “There were so many music festivals and concerts while I was there and a lot of them were free, it was fantastic. I’d be walking around and hear music and follow the sound. Some of my colleagues drove me out to see Mont-Tremblant which was great.”  

Of course she had to try poutine – the Canadian dish of chips, cheese curds and gravy – at least a couple of times. “I did like it but I really love everything sweet so I really got into maple butter, maple syrup and a bunch of different honeys I found at local markets on weekend,” she says. “I’m a foodie and love cooking – as much as possible I bought local produce.”

Looking after the planet – her second degree is in Environmental Science – is a priority for Parker and another reason she joined ABB.  

“I was drawn to hoisting knowing that we’re always going to need mining, especially to support the energy transition and the materials we need for solar, wind and hydro power technologies,” she says. “We’re always going to need to pull resources from the ground and with hoisting for underground mining being all electric it is, in my opinion, one of the most renewable forms of mining. ABB has all sorts of technologies to support the electrification of mining, and hoisting is already a sustainable way to pull out those essential minerals. It’s important to me that ABB is pushing for sustainability across the board.”  

Parker has a knack for bringing in new ideas herself. While in Canada, one of her desk jobs was working on electrical schematics and wiring diagrams. “It’s an important part of the job – you get a plant circuit diagram that you have to match with the wiring table to make sure everything is correct.” Using Excel she wrote a program for what she calls “a simple tool” to double-check the matching.

Back in Australia she mentioned it to the local team, but because she initially made it for her own use there’s more work to do. “I’ll make sure that it is perfect before I hand it off,” she says. “Then the idea is to give everyone access to it and collaborate some more.”    

Broader global collaboration was a key outcome from her first international stint with the young engineers exchange program – with another due to follow this year, probably in Europe.  

For now, Parker is enjoying sharing what she learnt from the Canadian team with her Australian colleagues.  

“It was interesting going over with a fresh set of eyes and seeing how a different country does things. When I came home I had a couple of different approaches to certain processes that I could share for us to consider trying and the team is so open-minded to any suggestions and happy to look into anything to see if it’s worth pursuing. It’s wonderful to give young people a chance to see how other places operate without the bias of ‘this is how it’s done because this is how we’ve done it for 20 years’.”