The Quarry manager shall manage three primary competences namely commercial, operational, and Marketing.

The main activity driving force shall be provided by the commercial. The commercial; using existing investment resource, running cost resource and quarry generated resource should provide strategic resources needed to run the quarry and sell its products. The quarry manager shall therefore supervise an unhindered flow of strategic resources from the commercial department to the operations and marketing department. Such fund flows must ensure profit and timely return on investment. To attract strategic resource; the marketing and operations department must provide a periodic (weekly) activity plan and resource demand corresponding to the planned activity. Such a demand schedule and plan must minimize the idle time of equipment on site and ensure timely payment of subcontractors, suppliers and personnel wages; these are critical motivational factors that ensure loyalty and must never be trivialized. The commercial must install control checks to ensure the productive use of her resources. Hence the commercial department must monitor and check the variance between equipment recorded production and actual material stock and subsequently between actual material stock and actual material sold. Physical survey check of stockpiles done weekly shall assist in these checks, weighbridge recording need to be computerized to check actual movement of crushed stone moved out of quarry site.

Fig 2 which indicates the Quarry Business Model describes the running of the quarry. The operations competence shall ensure continuous quarrying of marketable products. The marketable product sizes shall be prescribed by the marketing competence, while also ensuring the sale of the quarried product profitably. The commercial competence shall ensure adequate resource flows; she shall account and advice investor of the periodic return of investment. The commercial department must provide accurate accounting of fund flows and advise management of the monthly quantity of crushed stone and monthly sales amount to measure monthly profitability of operations; i.e. the amount produced and subsequently sold must exceed the monthly breakeven volume.

The following weekly plans need to be provided by; Marketing to commercial I. Production sizes and quantity

II. Marketing effort budget and plan III. Details of sales (quantities, Amount, Credit sales status) Operations to Commercial I. Resource demand list (fuel, oil and consumables, spares and cash) II. Production reports (Quantities and types) III. Equipment status report The following weekly/monthly control reports also have to be provided by; Commercial to Quarry manager to MIFE management I. Monthly production quantities II. Monthly unit production prices III. Monthly sales amount IV. Monthly per SBU profit/loss accounting Commercial reports with regards to Marketing I. Variance check on weighbridge Vs sales waybill II. Stockpile quantity Vs Sales Quantity III. Sales Quantity Vs waybill quantity Commercial reports with regards to Operations I. Compare fuel usage per ton of crushed stone II. Compare explosives usage per ton of crushed stone III. Equipment Idle time reports IV. Variance check on stone stock reports These planning and control checks help to monitor efficiency and must be taken seriously. Related Articles: Stone Crusher Quarry Process Management Operations Competence, Manage a Quarry