CASE STUDY | RETAIL | DATA & ANALYTICS
Mining Company Finds Gold With New ESG Data Capture Capability
Solution Overview
Industry
Mining
Solution
Data Capture Application
Technology
Powe Apps and Azure
Location
Australia
Client
An Australian-based corporation that engages in the exploration, development, mining, and sale of gold and gold-copper concentrate.
Requirement
The company’s sustainability reporting relied heavily on complex manual processes. The overall process was unwieldy, prone to error and based on large and complex Excel spreadsheets
About The Client
An Australian-based corporation that engages in the exploration, development, mining, and sale of gold and gold-copper concentrate had, like many businesses are looking to do, shifted its focus towards becoming a modern workplace and with itlooked to report on its progress on sustainability.
Unfortunately, it had hit a bit of a hard rock when it came to gathering, reviewing, and approving the data that needed to be reported.
The Challenge
The company’s sustainability reporting relied heavily on complex manual processes. The overall process was unwieldy, prone to error and based on large and complex Excel spreadsheets.
The challenge in reporting had grown in line with an increased focus on ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) reporting for compliance and disclosure purposes. Additionally, as ESG frameworks and requirements change, the ability to manage the data gathering and approval process centrally and effectively was needed.
The company approached Decision Inc. Australia to help it remove the complexity of its manual processes. Quickly, the Decision Inc. team identified complexities in the company’s overall ESG reporting architecture and made suggestions around consolidating and simplifying the review, approval, and audit processes for both manually collected and automatically populated ESG data sets.
The Solution
Decision Inc. Australia looked to address the issue through the development of a data capture application that would help facilitate the gathering of manually sourced ESG data from the company’s various mine sites, head offices, and other production locations across the world.
“The perception of mining organisations and the impact on the environment in the current political climate was intensifying the need to have a strong scalable platform for sustainability data and reporting. Equally, changes in regulatory, audit and compliance reporting requirements are ongoing and driving the need for adaptability and agility.”
– Tony Butler , Managing Director, Decision Inc. Australia
We delivered the project with an agile project team covering off standard discovery, design, minimum viable product (MVP) development, review and production release steps. To deliver the capability and in order to align with the client’s enterprise architecture, the decision was made to leverage Microsoft Power Apps suite of capabilities. This provided an agile, adaptable low-code solution that integrated natively with Azure Cloud services and the existing client environment.
“The architecture, functional and technical specifications were developed to support an MVP but also enable additional ESG standards to be adopted at a later stage,” said Butler. “The application design supports the addition or modification of users, approvers and administrators and scaling of locations, users and metrics recorded. By building this on an Azure cloud environment, compute and storage capabilities are sufficient to address any future growth requirements.”
The Outcome
The solution provided the mining company with:
A STANDARDISED MECHANISM FOR DATA
Gathering and input of manual ESG data is now done via a standarised process.
BETTER DATA AND INPUT CONTROL
A governed audit trail of the data submission and approvals was established which ensures the control and accuracy of data
REDUCTION OF ERRORS
There has been a significant reduction in errors from incorrect manual data inputs, excel spreadsheet errors and process issues
UP TO DATE SUSTAINABILITY AND DATA MODEL
The mine now has a consistent mechanism to
ingest manual data into the Sustainability
Data Model, this mechanism will ensure the
model is always up to date and the process
runs smoothly.
EASE OF APPROVAL AND AUDIT PROCESSES
A consistent mechanism to manage approval and audit processes are now in place and will smooth the process to ensure it is done timely and with ease.
ESG trends across multiple functional areas enables the company to make operational decisions to reduce their impact on the environment and better manage their relationships with the local communities. As more companies
look to become modern workplaces which meet new-age requirements such as ESG standards, we’ll see a greater need for more accurate reporting and transparent processes. This is one company that has jumped ahead of the curve.
– Tony Butler, Managing Director, Decision Inc. Australia
ABOUT DECISION INC.
We’re a leading independent AI, data and analytics consultancy where your business’s digital transformation becomes our mission. In a world teeming with change, we stand out by not just navigating the future but creating it. Our story isn’t just about technology; it’s about forging paths where others see obstacles.
With a blend of innovation, expertise, and a deep understanding of the digital landscape, we transform challenges into opportunities, guiding businesses toward unparalleled growth and success.
As seen in The Australian Financial Review, The Weekend Australian and The Canberra Times we serve the community and industry and believe great data and analytics expertise will underpin economic recovery and prosperity. We are proudly carbon neutral and Great Place to Work certified. You can read about our mission to achieve carbon neutrality here.
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