I would be relying heavily of the operators who are tasked to...

I would be relying heavily of the operators who are tasked to run the plant to gain ideas. I currently work at a plant that has been under commissioning for just on 2yrs and with an FID target of 96% recovery, we have been sitting on 46% at best. Only in the past month have we been able to put it all together to get a best of 92% for one shift, but we are still trying to understand the changes we make and quantify the results.
Our plant is unique and not something we can easily employ experienced operators and mets for. CXO on the other hand should be able to go to market and grab one or two from the other Majors or at least engage engineering firms who have dealt with the same issues as we are currently experiencing.
Fitters fix broken things, operators run and break things. An optimised DCS is just as important and again, takes years to fine tune. We are constantly changing sequences, adding in froth cameras and velocity contorllers.
Im slightly concerned about the ore properties themselves and hope that they are not brittle by nature and any form of crushing will generate excessive fines. I guess we just have to wait and see.