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Alteryx > Case Studies > Anglo American's Advanced Analytics Transformation with Alteryx

Anglo American's Advanced Analytics Transformation with Alteryx

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
Analytics & Modeling - Data-as-a-Service

Applicable Industries

Metals
Mining

Applicable Functions

Quality Assurance
Warehouse & Inventory Management

Use Cases

Inventory Management
Track & Trace of Assets

Services

Data Science Services
Training

The Challenge

Anglo American, one of the world's largest mining companies, found itself grappling with a complex data estate and an outdated database solution. The company uses a variety of systems and tools, which made working with data on a day-to-day basis challenging. The company needed to perform more frequent and detailed internal audits, ethical business conduct reviews, risk management activities, investigations, and more. However, the wide range of data sources and audits to produce, different data types, levels of granularity, and output formats often made bringing datasets together a challenge. Anglo American needed a solution that would allow the team to cleanse and match data more effectively, with automation to help analysts cover more scope than with manual audits.

About The Customer

Anglo American is one of the world's largest mining companies, with roots dating back to 1917. The company is a major producer of diamonds, copper, nickel, and other metals through sites across almost every continent. More than 40% of the few hundred tons of platinum produced yearly is mined by Anglo American. The company uses a variety of systems and tools for its operations, and over the years, it found itself with a complicated data estate and an outdated database solution. Anglo American needed to perform more frequent and detailed internal audits, ethical business conduct reviews, risk management activities, investigations, and more.

The Solution

Anglo American chose Alteryx as the best match for its skills and scalability needs. Alteryx’s low-code approach to building analytics functions meant the team could be trained on the fundamentals, without them having to learn a whole new coding language. Starting with a team of 13 volunteers, Alteryx Designer was implemented and work began on identifying the highest value domains to tackle. Data analytics for Anglo American’s business assurance function (ABAS) now runs entirely on Alteryx, with a Power BI integration that helps teams visualize audit outputs in a user-friendly way. Now, audit teams can cover more scope in less time and perform audit testing on entire populations instead of drawing samples, helping the organization move toward continuous assurance. Alteryx has enabled Anglo American to easily access and blend data in ways that just weren’t possible before.

Operational Impact

The implementation of Alteryx has had a significant impact on Anglo American’s control environment. The company’s Quellaveco Copper Mine, which sits atop one of the world’s biggest copper deposits, has seen a drastic reduction in the time taken to prepare reports. With Alteryx, an automated workflow extracts data from multiple spreadsheets from the vendor and contractor, producing two detailed breakdown reports in just 30 minutes. This has improved decision-making speed and accuracy. On a larger scale, Anglo American is using Alteryx workflows in its subsidiary, De Beers, to help track over a billion dollars’ worth of rough diamonds as they’re sorted and valued. The original balancing process was manual, spreadsheet-based, and took approximately a week to complete. With Alteryx, the process is now automated and completed in just two days, helping leaders identify imbalances earlier, optimize throughput, and keep track of inventory more accurately.

Quantitative Benefit