Discover how a major mining operation in Western Australia partnered with BCG X to revolutionize its processes using a cutting-edge AI scheduling platform, boosting productivity and operational efficiency.
Our Approach to Metals and Mining Consulting
BCG’s global teams of experts specialize in both the mining industry and metals industry (including steel, aluminum, copper, and other base metals). We partner closely with clients to help them engineer the strategic and operational shifts needed to stay competitive. We also help clients
manage large-scale change and build the in-house capabilities that are essential for sustaining success.
BCG’s ability to combine expertise in operations transformation with knowledge of digital and analytics technologies is unique in the metals and mining consulting industry. This skill has earned us accolades and long-term partnerships across all commodities and diverse geographies.
Our proprietary approaches and frameworks enable clients to achieve unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness in every aspect of their businesses, including operations, strategy and logistics.
BCG’s ability to combine expertise in operations transformation with knowledge of digital and analytics technologies is unique in the metals and mining consulting industry. This skill has earned us accolades and long-term partnerships across all commodities and diverse geographies.
Our proprietary approaches and frameworks enable clients to achieve unprecedented efficiency and effectiveness in every aspect of their businesses, including operations, strategy and logistics.
Mine Operating Systems Transformation (MOST)
This approach helps companies make sure that their investments in operational transformation deliver measurable and sustained returns—through clear priority setting, performance optimization, and the smart deployment of new technologies.
LESS Capital Approach to Megaprojects
The LESS framework applies proven principles to risky-but-rewarding megaprojects; for example, using lean practices to tighten scope and remove unnecessary specifications.
Steel Market Model
The model tracks the entire value chain, from demand to raw materials, using steel intensity and demand projections to uncover key drivers in the market. Analyses help clients answer such vital questions as, “How will steel demand develop globally and regionally?” “Where will supply come from?” and “How will raw-materials markets respond?”
Commodity Markets Insights
This suite helps clients develop tailored scenarios for long-term price forecasts for all major commodities, using analysis of macroeconomic trends, GDP scenarios, demographic shifts, and early-warning indicators.
The Future of Process Industries
Explore our collection of insights and learn how to navigate the six key trends that are reshaping the future of basic and industrial materials.
Featured Client Work in Metals and Mining
A large integrated metals player digitally transforms to put customers first. BCG worked with an industrial metal client to develop a seamless value chain that used digital and advanced analytics to manage complexity and minimize uncertainty in its services processes. The transformation set the stage for a 10-point improvement in service levels, a rise in EBITDA of 2 to 4 points, and reductions in inventory levels of four to ten days.
A diversified mine operator reinvents its marketing and sales strategy. With BCG’s help, the client revamped its entire approach to
marketing and sales by developing local sales forces for products in nonliquid markets where the company had a smaller market share, while also building a commodity-trading business for products that had reached full liquidity in the market. The estimated bottom-line impact was more than $1 billion in annual pretax benefit.
A major steelmaker transforms to supercharge its earnings. BCG helped the client revive margins damaged by overcapacity and correct a siloed corporate culture. We launched a comprehensive transformation program that included improvement projects for mill production, sales, service efficiency, purchasing, and administration. The work resulted in €2 billion in increases of identified potential earnings, €540 million in top-line improvements, and €1.5 billion in
cost efficiencies.
Teck Resources Limited uses data science to optimize operations and transform the entire business. BCG worked with the mining company to harness key insights from its wealth of operational data using machine learning—a program called RACE21—to improve processing efficiency. The program has not only allowed Teck to reduce costs but also to minimize the company’s impact on the environment.
Read the full story in
Wired.
Video
December 4, 2024
De Beers CEO Al Cook shares how the company leverages data and innovative marketing techniques to meet demand for natural diamonds across generations and global markets.
Video
March 18, 2021
Shell's MachineMax Revolutionizes Equipment Management with Telematics
Shell and BCG have paired numerous times to reimagine the future and, in the process, have incubated and launched several new businesses. MachineMax, which evolved from an initiative whose initial aim was to find new applications for Shell lubricants, provides an answer to a critical challenge facing the mining and construction industries: how to maximize the productivity of their equipment.
Video
May 8, 2024
So much so that the climate action leader has furthered its sustainability mandate by launching large-scale decarbonization and operational pilots that will be implemented across sites.
Our Metals and Mining Products
Natural Resource Ops by BCG X
Natural Resource Ops, BCG X’s proprietary AI solution, helps companies uncover opportunities hidden in existing continuous-process operations, offering real-time recommendations that create transformational change and improve performance at any stage of the process.
Natural Resource Ops by BCG X
Plantfacts by BCG
Plantfacts by BCG is a state-of-the-art online tool that provides fast and in-depth insights into the global steel production landscape. With its intuitive, interactive dashboards, Plantfacts captures the essence of technical data by providing market and company intelligence along the entire steel making value chain.
Plantfacts by BCG
Our Latest Thinking on the Metals and Mining Industry
Video
January 27, 2025
The Cost-Saving Power in Procurement
Declining producer prices have given process industry firms a crucial but limited window of opportunity to renegotiate contracts and set a new cost baseline.
Article
January 14, 2025
Mineral hubs can do more than overcome trade flow disruptions and the growing supply gap of critical minerals—they represent important economic opportunity.
Article
November 20, 2024
With the aluminum industry facing a substantial demand-supply deficit by 2030, deploying cost-reduction and capital-efficiency levers now can help players ensure their future success.
Article
November 13, 2024
The energy transition may promise unprecedented growth, but miners face significant challenges. New winners are showing a path to sustainable value creation over the next decade.
