What CEOs and Investors should know about process optimization

Geometallurgy, long term mine planing, automated scheduling and other instances of software assisted process control and optimization rapidly gain importance in the mining sector. Decisions are taken based on big data and predictive models. Comparisons show substantial - but not always positive - effects on NPV, reliability, efficiency and recovery. Automated optimization is however not a technology like every other. It changes how we approach decision making and can easily gain or lose big money. CEOs and investors need to be aware of the chances, the pitfalls and the fundamental mechanisms of this industrial transformation. The presentation will demonstrate some of the relevant effects and principles on worked examples and extract the important implications for leading engineers, CEOs and investors. It shows how in this context disregarding uncertainty ruins your company, how classical KPIs and company structures cut the NPV, and why investors need to ask new questions. But it also shows how a rigorous and integrated approach to decisions making can help to increase net profit substantially. Leading the mining business into the 4th industrial revolution requires a deep understanding of these effects. Let's get started.