Qetelo Qhola

Reporting directly to the Operations Department Manager, responsibilities included (but not limited) the following:

• Ownership and responsibility over independent robotic, automated and battery-operated storage magmatic vehicles.
• Designed and analyzed mechanical systems to enhance operational efficiency.
• Worked with cross-functional teams in developing innovative engineering solutions for complex projects.
• Implemented advanced simulation tools to optimize product design and performance.
• Conducted comprehensive testing and validation of mechanical components to ensure reliability.

Reporting directly to the engineering manager and working as part of an amazing team of engineers at a renewables digester plant, responsibilities included:

• To provide high operational availability, and an efficient breakdown repair service through diagnosis running faults and ensuring effective repairs and improvements are conducted within minimum timescales.
• Ensure productivity and availability exceeds minimum defined standards, whilst driving best practice and continuous improvement in cost control and processing operations.
• Keep abreast of changes to Health & Safety, Environmental Legislation and Company Policies to ensure defined standards and best practices are implemented.
• Carry out installation work to the required standards.
• Develop and implement a programme of planned preventative maintenance and inspection to minimize downtime, provide records of recurrent faulting and develop engineered solutions to these issues.
• To liaise with external contractors on specific repairs/maintenance work.
• Ensure compliance with all Company policies, processes and procedures.
• Review maintenance activities, implementing necessary corrective actions as required.
• Work alongside the Mechanical Technician to drive the engineering team in line with Shift Supervisor and pursue daily engineering issues that affect production and plant availability.
• Drive a culture of continuous improvement and teamwork in line with company values.

Responsible for carrying out research and lecturing duties. Involved in the administration of Mechanical, Industrial and Aeronautical Engineering degrees by offering the Engineering Thermodynamics I course (Code: MECN2021) to the year of study two students. Reporting to the head of department, my responsibilities included (but not limited to) the following:

• Conducted research seeking to establish more applicable practical techniques for residual stress evaluation in materials in their practical applications. Extensive and advanced use of ANSYS and 3D CAD tools. Published research work:

P. Nobre, T.C. Smit, R. Reid, Q. Qhola, T. Wu, T. Niendorf
Stress evaluation through the layers of a fibre-metal hybrid composite by IHD: an experimental study
Exp. Mech., 64 (2024), pp. 487-500, 10.1007/s11340-024-01047-z

• Enhanced students learning by optimizing wide range of instructional approaches and innovative classroom activities.
• Involved in setting-up tutorials, tests, and exams, in the course. Also involved in assessing students course work and material.
• Evaluated and revised lesson plans and course content to facilitate and moderate classroom discussions and student-centred learning.
• Kept students on-task with proactive behaviour modification and positive reinforcement strategies.

Kao Diamond Mine is the second largest in Lesotho (in terms of operations) found on the largest Kimberlite pipe, discovered to date, in the country. It has monthly target of an approximate 500,000 tons of processed ore and approximately 30,000 carats in recovered diamonds, each month. Under limited supervision, and reporting directly to the Engineering Manager, my (non-exhaustive) responsibilities the following:

• Ensuring that all plant equipment or machines were maintained to required standards. These included crushing, conveying, screening, sorting, pumping, electrical & control equipment, compressors, scrubbers, etc.
• Ensuring maintenance personnel and contractors were provided necessary technical support to perform their duties (fault finding, technical guidance, etc.).
• Interrogating and analysing critical equipment reliability data to identify trends and proactively provide solutions in conjunction with the engineering team.
• Ensuring all plant equipment had reliability growth plan that was well executed and was regularly reviewed in conjunction with the engineering management team.
• Produced daily production reports for the company's senior management meetings, and weekly reliability dashboards and statistics for critical equipment performance.
• Ensuring that the daily root-cause analysis reports were completed and loaded onto the CMMS (with support from the maintenance planning department) for all major and minor plant breakdowns (which may or may have not affected production). Ensured corrective actions were closed off and updated onto the CMMS.
• Conducted and ensured that regular quality preventative maintenance inspections were carried out (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) across the plant, with corrective actions and lessons learnt distributed throughout the engineering team, and wider if necessary.
• Regularly developed business plans, secured funds, designed and implemented capital projects which were meant to improve the plant availability for optimised production.
• Produce and submit technical reports as required by various stakeholders.
• Provided support and guidance to the Stores and Procurement departments to ensure suitable spares and service kits were available to support the all operation within the plant.
• Kao Diamond Mine is the second largest in Lesotho (in terms of operations) found on the largest Kimberlite pipe, discovered to date, in the country. It has monthly target of an approximate 500,000 tons of processed ore and approximately 30,000 carats in recovered diamonds, each month.