Specialist Cost Controller | WAIO | South Flank | FIFO 5/2/4/3
Australia
About BHP
At BHP we support our people to grow, learn, develop their skills and reach their potential. With a global portfolio of operations, we offer a diverse and inclusive environment with extraordinary career opportunities. Our strategy is to focus on creating a safe work environment where our employees feel strongly connected to our values and objectives, and where the capability of our people is key to our success.
Come and be a part of this success.
About the Role
We’re seeking a Specialist Cost Controller to strengthen cost governance across Shutdowns, Outages, and Weekly Maintenance Execution at South Flank. You will play a key role in ensuring our maintenance activities are delivered efficiently, accurately, and within budget—directly contributing to the operational performance and financial success of the site.
As the Specialist Cost Controller, you will drive cost discipline across Execution Maintenance, support shutdown readiness, provide high‑quality reporting, and coach maintenance teams on strong cost‑control practices. You will partner closely with Maintenance Execution, Finance, Planning, Supply, Reliability, Engineering, and contractor groups to deliver accurate, transparent, and timely cost insights.
You will you'll join a high‑performing team, that values safety, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Your work will directly improve cost performance, shutdown readiness, and frontline execution efficiency—creating real impact in one of the world’s most advanced iron‑ore operations.
Key Responsibilities
Leadership & Coordination
- Identify cost‑improvement opportunities across maintenance execution.
- Assess and report on data accuracy, completeness, and consistency while improving data quality.
- Drive adherence to PO, cost centre, and work‑management standards.
- Coach and upskill frontline teams and leaders in cost‑control practices.
- Contribute to cost routines for Shutdowns, Weekly, and Outage revisions.
- Participate in shutdown readiness, milestone meetings, and post‑event lessons‑learned sessions.
Planning & Budgeting
- Contribute to Shutdown, Outage, and weekly cost reporting.
- Identify potential componentisation opportunities and liaise with the Finance Business Partner.
- Support month‑end processes, including accruals and forecasting.
Cost Reporting & Variance Analysis
- Prepare and support monthly cost routines with Maintenance Leadership.
- Monitor actual vs planned shutdown, outage, and weekly costs.
- Identify cost discrepancies and recommend corrective actions.
- Track shutdown metrics (ELR/ILR, workforce categories) and support workforce/PO/EOM reporting.
Compliance & Governance
- Review shutdown scopes to identify waste and overspend risks.
- Verify warranty claims, SES, invoices, and contractor charges.
- Ensure alignment with internal governance, approvals, and audit requirements.
- Identify opportunities to reduce cost through scope optimisation or removal of redundant work.
Auditing & Verification
- Conduct onsite verification of vendor activities (labour, equipment, tooling).
- Review mobilisation/demobilisation timing and charges.
- Validate SES claims and service accuracy.
Stakeholder Engagement
- Provide consistent cost communication across Maintenance Execution, Shutdown teams, Finance, Scheduling/Planning, Reliability, Processing, Engineering, and Procurement.
- Provide input into business meetings where maintenance execution cost is impacted.
About You
- Experience in cost control, financial governance, or maintenance execution support.
- Strong analytical mindset with high attention to detail.
- Ability to coach, influence, and collaborate across multidisciplinary teams.
- Comfortable working in a dynamic, high‑volume maintenance environment.
- Strong communication skills and confidence in challenging data inconsistencies.
- Proficient in SAP, reporting tools, and work‑management processes (advantageous).
About Our Process
At BHP, we are committed to employing individuals who align with the BHP Charter Values and meet the requirements of the role. As part of the recruitment process, there are a number of checks which may be conducted to demonstrate applicants suitability for a role including police / criminal background checks, medical, drug and alcohol testing, due diligence checks, right to work checks, and/or reference checks.
If you are already employed directly by BHP, please log in using your BHP email address or apply via our internal jobs portal.
Supporting a Diverse Workforce
The size, stability and magnitude of our business not only provides significant opportunity for professional development, but also attractive salary packages with performance-based bonuses and a best-in-class employee share program. We know there are many aspects of our employees' lives that are important, and work is only one of these, so we offer benefits to enable your work to fit with your life. These benefits include flexible working options, a generous paid parental leave policy, other extended leave entitlements and parent rooms.
At BHP, we know that we are strengthened by diversity. We are an Equal Opportunity employer that is committed to making BHP a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive and be at their best every day. We are focused on creating a workforce that’s more diverse and represents the communities where we work and live. providing a work environment in which everyone is included, treated fairly and with respect. We are an Equal Opportunity employer and recognise that true diversity includes gender, age, race, disability status, sexual orientation, religion, neurodiversity, education levels, and many more aspects of your identity.
BHP is committed to providing a recruitment process that is fair, equitable and accessible for all. If you have a disability, we know that it may be helpful for us to adjust our process to make it equitable for your individual situation. If you would like to reach out to someone about your situation and our recruitment process, please email us at inclusion@bhp.com.