Anglo American: $150M Savings and 97% Compliance Through Intelligent Performance Monitoring
Anglo American, a global leader in mining and one of the world’s largest producers of platinum, diamonds, copper, and other critical minerals, embarked on a major initiative to develop a performance monitoring system for its worldwide operations. Prior to partnering with Ardanis, the company had already invested $9M through other vendors, yet the system failed to meet operational needs, lacked scalability, and delivered limited business value.
The absence of a robust, real-time monitoring platform created visibility gaps, slowed decision-making, and reduced confidence among internal teams. Recognizing the urgency to recover the initiative and secure measurable outcomes, Anglo American turned to Ardanis to redefine the strategy, accelerate delivery, and build a strong technical foundation for long-term success
The main challenge was to rescue a complex, misaligned project and redirect it toward impactful business results. Anglo American needed:
- Greater efficiency and workflow optimization, as teams were overloaded, lacked clear priorities, and struggled to maintain productivity.
- Maximization of the initial $9M investment, moving from immature prototypes to a scalable, enterprise-grade platform.
- Reduction of project complexity, establishing a clear roadmap, achievable milestones, and a disciplined delivery approach.
- Operational clarity and alignment, ensuring all stakeholders shared the same vision and success metrics.
Plain Concepts took on the challenge by redefining the project scope, restructuring the backlog, optimizing the SDLC, and introducing automated, real-time monitoring capabilities—ultimately driving software compliance from 22% to 97% and enabling significant improvements in efficiency, safety, and sustainability across the organization.
Anglo American’s Journey Toward a High-Performance Monitoring Platform
Anglo American, a global leader in the mining sector, initiated a large-scale project to develop a performance monitoring system capable of supporting its worldwide operations. After investing $9M through previous vendors, the platform still failed to meet business expectations: it was not scalable, lacked real-time visibility, and could not deliver the operational improvements required.
Facing these challenges, Anglo American turned to Plain Concepts with a clear objective: rescue the initiative, unlock the value of prior investments, and implement a solid, impactful platform in a very short timeframe. The engagement began with an in-depth assessment of the project’s status, a full redefinition of its scope, and the reorganization of the backlog to prioritize high-value features.
Plain Concepts reshaped the software development lifecycle (SDLC), introducing agile, traceable processes and a shared roadmap with Anglo American’s teams. This structured approach accelerated delivery, improved software quality, and created a stable foundation for future enhancements to the monitoring system.
Additionally, Plain Concepts implemented advanced automation to enable real-time performance tracking, early issue detection, and faster resolution. The project, initially focused on specific mining operations, rapidly expanded across departments, multiplying its impact and creating a unified operational standard that strengthened control, compliance, and efficiency across the global organisation.
“Plain Concepts helped Anglo American boost software compliance from 22% to 97%, earning an A+ rating—the highest across its operations.”
Results
- $150M in savings generated through automation and performance monitoring improvements.
- Software compliance increased from 22% to 97% (E to A+), the highest rating across Anglo American’s operations.
- Enhanced early issue detection leading to safer and more sustainable operational practices.
- Expansion of the monitoring platform across multiple departments and global locations.
- A solid technological and procedural foundation for future growth in monitoring, analytics, and decision-making.
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