When it comes to supply chain management, integrated business planning, and the need for digital transformation in the mining industry, few people know more than Wolfram. DecisionNext was lucky enough to tap into his wealth of knowledge recently, and we chatted about industry challenges, the future, and AI.

1.) With your background in the mining and natural resources industry, what do you see as the biggest challenges for industry today?  

There are many strategic challenges related to ESG, innovation, as well as supply chain under the current geopolitical uncertainties. Specifically regarding the latter topic, mining supply and value chains can be very complex and are subject to many different risks. A major challenge in the medium to short term is that it is hard to make optimized production and sales decisions, because it is difficult to quantify and compare scenarios. Cost is easier to ascertain, but making margin projections or even only quantify options and give them a risk rating is very hard.

2.) What gives you hope for the future?

With the advent of Advanced Analytics and AI, I hope that the experienced staff and the decision makers will be able to organize data and facts into something meaningful, making better decisions. A well-controlled present and close future can can give peace of mind and free resources to address some other of the more long term challenges.

3.) Having spent nearly two decades with Vale, one of the world’s largest iron ore and base metals producers, what factors contributed to them being such a big player in the market?

There are multiple factors. One is the quality of the products and another is that Vale is very innovative on the Supply and Value Chain side. They stay close to customers and find solutions which ultimately benefit both parties. I worked most of my career in expanding the iron ore operations from Brazil to the Middle East, Malaysia and China. Of course, a high demand also helps with success, but even more important for the long term is the knowledge of the customers, their pain points and opportunities, the supply chain options, and where potential value levers are located.

4.) You mentioned  the rise of cutting-edge software, specifically A.I.  What immediate  impact do you think it can have on the industry?

There is a whole world of opportunities, but if we continue to focus on the supply chain side, AI can help to improve short- and medium-term decisions. There’s a lot of money on the table. One wrong or non-optimal decision can easily cause a large six-figure loss in revenue or an equivalent cost increase through unoptimized freight, storage capacity, etc.

Mining typically will not have a huge amount of data like in other industries. But there’s a lot of value hidden in this frequently “unmined” data. Frequently, it’s not clean, not organized, and spread across multiple systems and excel files. To have an AI solution which can organize this data and in a user-friendly way to support the decision-making processes is a huge opportunity. It can add a lot of value with relatively little effort and costs.

5.) You have worked internationally in places like Belgium, Switzerland, Oman, Malaysia, China, and Brazil. For those of us who haven’t visited, are there any dishes you recommend we try?

Every place will have fantastic choices. The secret is to go with local people and explore hidden places. It would be hard for me to choose a favorite, but for sure in Switzerland the filet de perche, which is a very small local fish. In Oman, the fresh tuna bought in the morning from the local fish-market. In Vietnam, try the fresh spring rolls. And in China, Sichuan cuisine is great for those who like it spicy! At home, we create our own fusion-cuisine, inspired by all the flavors and ingredients of the places we went to!

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