SILVERCORP Metals has attributed a significant increase in head grades of silver, lead and zinc at its Chinese operations to a new internal ‘Enterprise Blog’ system. This is an internet social media system that makes the distribution and flow of work-related knowledge and information easy and transparent for parties at different locations.

The Ying Mining Camp in Henan Province which encompasses the SGX, HPG and TLP/LM underground mines.

During the June quarter the company achieved a 23% increase in the average head grade of silver, a 21% increase in lead and 22% increase in zinc compared to the same period of 2015.

Silvercorp says the Enterprise Blog system, which was implemented in August 2015 in the management of mine production and safety areas, has resulted in information collection, distribution, retrieval, and monitoring becoming transparent and immediate.

In the system, for example, each of the mining stopes, development faces or equipment is assigned a blog name. Daily results of onsite inspection for these stopes or faces by responsible engineers are required to be published on their blogs. The results are listed in a structured data formatted in a check list table, containing information and supporting photos as required by the company.

Related parties at different levels of the management team can access directly to the daily blog for each work place, for the first hand information. The system will also record if a management person has accessed the blog to read or comment on the daily results under his responsibility.

The information and knowledge collected by the frontline technicians or engineers flows through layers of the management structure. The responsible management person has the pressure, incentive, and tools to make prompt and more accurate decisions that can be instantly delivered to responsible parties. The benefits of the system are that collaboration for each team member becomes easy, KPI assessments are fair and timely, and each person is accountable for his/her work.

For the three months ended June 30, on a consolidated basis, Silvercorp mined 237,857 tonnes of ore, up 2% compared to 233,834 tonnes in same period of 2015. The increase was mainly due to a 4% increase in ore mined in the Ying Mining District as production in the 2015 period was affected by the termination of a mining contractor, offset by a 4% decrease in ore mined at the GC mine. Ore milled increased 2% to 231,334 tonnes compared to 226,956 tonnes in the 2015 quarter.