In mining, the most overlooked and dangerous metric is the time it takes to make a decision. Make your way to the operations planning meeting at any mine site, and you will find an unexpected bottleneck. One of our Mining company’s leadership confirms they spend significant time here daily. The goal is to oversee and control operations. The reality, however, is that most of this strategic time is lost to a different kind of extraction: going through disconnected reports and spreadsheets in a desperate hunt for the root cause of the latest production snag. Time-to-Decision is the unseen force eroding profits and inflating risk across the industry. It leads to costly excavation of data. The goal is to find the single, actionable insight buried within the noise. Why did production in Stope B4 dip by 8%? Where is the missing drill rig? The time spent answering these questions is the first, and most visible, component of a dangerously slow “Time to Decision.” The consequences of this lag compound with brutal speed. A minor deviation in a production cycle, if left unaddressed for hours, doesn’t remain minor. It ripples through the entire value chain. The delayed truck misses its slot at the crusher, which in turn starves the mill, ultimately reducing the final output of concentrate. The cost isn't just the lost production from the initial event, but the cascading inefficiency it triggers downstream. The inability to make a swift, informed decision turns a small leak into a flood. This is where the concept of “Time to Decision” moves from an operational nuisance to a strategic threat. A slow decision-making process means the company is perpetually reacting to yesterday's problems, never able to get ahead of the operational curve. When the data is too murky or contradictory, the ultimate, and most expensive, solution is deployed: a senior executive is put on a plane. This act represents a total failure of the information system, costing a minimum of 16 hours in travel and dead time. It is an admission that the only reliable sensor the company has is a pair of human eyes on-site. While that executive is in the air, their strategic responsibilities are on hold. The clock keeps ticking on mergers, capital allocation, and long-term planning. This is the core reason why the conversation around technology in mining is shifting. The push for digital transformation is a direct assault on the “Time to Decision.” Integrating disparate data flows into a single, coherent view is the only way to shrink the dangerous lag between event and action. When a manager can see a deviation in real-time and begin investigating its root cause in minutes, not hours, the entire operational and financial calculus of the mine changes. For an industry that has mastered the art of extracting value from deep within the earth, the next frontier is extracting it from the data it already owns.
We've seen a lot of companies have the data but simple can't access it with many people on site not even knowing it exists! As you said, making timely, data-driven decisions (rather than guesses or gut feel) is crucial to operational success. It's generally not hard to extract data from a data lake, but how does a site or its leaders know which metrics are the right ones? The wrong approach can lead to analysis paralysis from information overload.
Podría ser de interés para los responsables de las Operaciones Mineras
I agree with the points about delayed decision in mining impacting efficiency and sustainability. However, I'd like to add a crucial aspect: employee morale. When we expect exceptional results from outdated systems and infrastructure, while holding employees accountable, it silently erodes their morale. Timely decisions on strategic initiatives is essential to support both productivity and employee well-being.
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2wThere's a fascinating insight that organizations making fast decisions are twice as likely to make high-quality ones. This shows that true transformation is about shifting the internal culture. That's often the biggest challenge, especially when confronting the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mindset.