Our iron ore business
is a large business based in the Pilbara in Western Australia.
It's made up of 17 iron ore mines, almost 2,000 kilometres of rail and 4 port terminals.
We operate all of those assets as one integrated system
to produce a suite of products for our customers,
which are steel mills largely based in Asia.
Our scheduling team is at the heart of making complex decisions to ensure
that we can deliver a million tonnes of iron ore a day from our supply chain.
Over the last two decades, our iron ore business has changed dramatically.
It's more than tripled in size,
so it was really important for us to set our people up for success,
to make the right decisions, at the right time, in this new environment.
We had a lot of systems that had served us very, very well but were becoming dated.
So we started on the journey
of changing out our scheduling systems, our scheduling platforms.
What we have built together with
Boston Consulting Group is really an incredible
piece of software that takes the latest
advanced technologies such as
advanced analytics, advanced artificial intelligence,
as well as generative AI
and we've combined it into a
single package that not only looks at all
those really cool things like optimisation and simulation,
but really creates a different experience for our end users, our schedulers.
We've been building the plane whilst
flying and essentially incrementally retiring legacy
capabilities and technology whilst building new as we go.
And it's not just about the technology, it's about leaving behind a fully embedded
and capable internal team to evolve the platform and the tools over time.
Partnering with BCG has been fantastic.
The future scheduling platform has given the team the right modern tools,
with the right time and space now to make the right decisions
to deliver the best outcomes for our business.
We've been able to replace one of our legacy systems
that was no longer serving us and no longer helping our people
make some of those complex, multi-million dollar decisions.
But more than that, we've been able to save time in the way that we schedule
and make better decisions,
which have resulted in being able to pay off the investment
in less than three months.
Usually, the old system would take over a year
to learn, and with the future scheduling platform,
I was able to learn it within a month.
It's been amazing to see how the two organisations
have partnered together and delivered a game changing outcome for Rio.
The scheduling system has really opened our eyes to the art of
what is possible in terms of the world of artificial intelligence.
This has set the foundation
for all our future work in our other systems, specifically in areas
where we could use similar techniques to get better outcomes for our people.
It's a big deal for Rio Tinto to replace the legacy assets we have.
So to be able to do that in a way that really has shown
this was the right way, the right way to partner, the right partner to have
with BCG to deliver a really complex mission critical solution,
that's what I'm proud of.