Democratizing Data to Reach New Levels of Productivity with Freeport-McMoRan

Situation

Freeport-McMoRan, a global mining firm that collects millions of data points daily from its large fleet of haul trucks, wanted to tap into trapped productivity hiding in its data. WWT helped Freeport capture, analyze and make sense of hundreds of millions of data points so their mine sites could have their best day every day.

By seamlessly analyzing and integrating data into daily workflows, Freeport is now able to make critical decisions more rapidly and create platforms for future innovation.

Solution

We partnered with Freeport to help build the Haul Truck Operator Scorecard (HTOS), an intuitive, user-centric web application that translates massive loads of data into clear and actionable insights. Among other features and utilities, HTOS helped:

• Enhance safety and increased productivity across the workforce
• Deliver prescriptive insights to aid drivers and improve decision making
• Drive workflow visibility and optimization
• Give Freeport a tool that could be repeated and scaled across locations or fleets
• Make Freeport more proactive with advanced simulation techniques

"This is one of those unique solutions that hits just about every facet of modern data science, AI and cloud computing architecture," said Robert Catron, manager of Global Data Science for Freeport-McMoRan. "It's a really sophisticated solution technically."

Use cases

Behavioral insights for continuous improvement: Digesting daily performance and behavioral data to take a more proactive and prescriptive approach to the haulage cycle, boost efficiency, allow for better coaching from supervisors and give leadership end-to-end visibility. 

Machine learning application: Real-time location monitoring data plus a machine learning algorithm that factors in road conditions, travel speed, road curvature, intersections and hard turns to track trucks in real-time and drive efficiencies.

Outcomes and benefits

Culture of innovation: Key decisions — from the boardroom to inside haul trucks — are now driven by a combination of data, analytics and human expertise, with data analysis and knowledge workers working together to identify areas for improvement.

Compounding ROI: A reliable data and analytics foundation has unlocked exceptional ROI across a variety of use cases, which helps Freeport realize compounding returns as it continues to scale the solution across its enterprise.

Predictive and proactive: With a comprehensive view of its entire portfolio of sensors, trucks and other data-emitting assets, Freeport is now able to leverage predictive analytics to take purposeful and prescriptive actions to optimize future productivity.

Continuous improvement: HTOS gave operators access to feedback on inputs so they could learn learn quickly and enabled supervisors to recommend effective performance boosting strategies based on tangible data.

Areas of expertise

Transformation isn't simply a technology decision. Such undertakings demand the right mix of technology, people, capabilities and areas of expertise. Here's what the Freeport solution required:

• AI and ML
• Remote asset monitoring
• IoT
• Computer vision and video analytics
• User experience
• Cloud and edge computing
• Big data consulting
• Industry expertise

How we did it

With over 30 years of experience helping the world's largest companies and government entities, we've learned digital transformation and IT modernization thrive in the space between:  

Our deep domain expertise cuts across business and technology. And our ability to extensively test solutions and deploy them at scale allows us to both advise and execute to create new realities for our customers. Here's how we did it with Freeport:

We started small and built momentum: After assessing Freeport's data maturity, we carefully evaluated strategic opportunities across its portfolio that would quickly demonstrate the impact of analytics on the company's bottom line. Those quick wins cultivated organizational buy-in and an eagerness to continue along this path as we gradually inched closer toward data maturity.

We let the use case do the driving: We collaborated with key stakeholders from across the Freeport business to identify and prioritize specific use cases that would create value for the organization before diving deep into which algorithms or platforms should be utilized. We let the use case drive our technology decisions, which helped dictate the complexity of the solution.

We focused on the end user: Freeport's knowledge workers are trusted with thousands of dollars of potential impact each minute. Adoption of any solution is simply table stakes. We leveraged their institutional understanding of the business — working to understand their busy schedules and pain points — and digitized it in a way that made sense for them.

How can we help you?

Every company wants to be built around data, but few actually are. WWT's experienced data scientists and engineering experts can assess your organization's data maturity level, collaborate to establish a go-forward strategy and then execute on that vision. 

We're here to help you realize the transformational value and accelerated business outcomes associated with adopting a true data-driven culture.

• Identify patterns and trends: Enable better-informed decision making regarding where to allocate resources and focus critical efforts.
• Build use cases: Optimize the value of your highest priority use cases.
• Manage data: Ensure your data is managed proactively and efficiently.
• Leverage AI/ML: Recognize the most appropriate opportunities to implement artificial intelligence and machine learning for competitive advantage.