Value Chain Optimisation Model
Case Study:
Value Chain Optimisation Model
Client Challenge
A global mining client operates a full mine-to-market value chain, encompassing mining, smelting, refining, and market delivery.
The intricacy of the platinum refining process, coupled with the scale of operations, has led to siloed planning departments for metal accounting, operational planning, and financial forecasting. These fragmented systems created significant challenges for strategic planning and decision-making:
- Inefficient planning across the asset portfolio and processing value chain resulted in suboptimal decisions, reducing the overall effectiveness of resource utilization.
- Limited visibility into value "leakages" and opportunities hindered the organization’s ability to optimize capital allocation and operational priorities.
- Siloed systems and processes led to long lead times, protracted planning cycles, and reactive decision-making, limiting the agility needed to adapt to market and operational dynamics.
These challenges underscored the need for an integrated platform to provide a unified view of the entire value chain, improve decision-making efficiency, and align strategic objectives across the organization.
- How much additional value could be captured by reallocating resources to higher-grade ore bodies?
- How do changes in inventory levels affect cash flow and profitability?
- What is the impact of investing in an additional refining facility to eliminate the bottleneck?
- What’s the optimal trade-off between processing our material and toll treating third-party material?
The Solution
BSC developed an integrated solution that models the company’s entire mine-to-market value chain. This solution provides a unified, driver-based strategic planning capability, combining operational and financial insights to enable informed, agile decision-making.
- Complete Value Chain Modelling captures every stage from mining operations through smelting, refining, and market delivery, ensuring a holistic view of the business.
- Financial Overlay aligns system throughputs with financial outcomes, offering a clear link between production scenarios and profitability.
- Dynamic Integration connects directly to Metal Accounting Systems and Hyperion Strategic Finance (HSF), ensuring data accuracy and enabling dynamic scalability as new investment cases are loaded into HSF.
Solution Value
- Supported strategic valuation decisions worth ~USD 3bn.
- Enabled a single analyst to test 620+ complex scenarios per year.
- Reduced weeks of modelling and analysis to days, saving an estimated R1m / year in productive analyst time.