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Defining Benefits of Digitalisation in the Mining and Metals Industry

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Defining Benefits of Digitalisation in the Mining and Metals Industry

Companies are currently on their way towards digital transformation or recognizing the need for it. The thesis focused on the identifying and describing the benefits of digitalisation for the Metals and mining industry customers. Since the technologies are developing fast, there is a need to explore and demonstrate how these technologies can benefit the customers. The study followed the applied action research approach. The research design consisted of five steps and the data was collected in three rounds. The first round was gathered for the current state analysis by analyzing internal documents, and conducting meetings and workshops. The second round included internal meetings, interviews and workshops, and was applied for the Proposal building. The third round contained the group interview for validation of the initial proposal. The current state analysis investigated the company´s existing digital projects in the Metals and mining industry, and also used the Paper and pulp industry as the benchmark of digitalisation. The findings from the current state analysis guided the literature and best practice search that resulted in building the theoretical framework. Both inputs, from the current state analysis and existing knowledge, helped the proposal building in the next stage. The proposal was developed in five steps. First, there were discussed the visions of potential digital solutions, tools and benefits in the Metals and mining industry. Second, the competitor’s vision about digital solutions, tools and benefits were gathered and analyzed. Third, the role or digital twin in sustainability was revised. Fourth, the competitor’s analysis of digital twin features was accomplished, together with other digital solutions among 25 leading technology organisations. Fifth, the actual initial proposal was formulated based on these inputs. As the outcome, the thesis demonstrated that the main benefits of digitalisation relate to efficiency increase, reduction of operational costs, data storage and analysis. Indeed, there are many other benefits of digitalisation, such as better manufacturing processes, faster delivery of services and products, short reaction time to client’s feedback, lower production costs, new client acquisition channels, improved innovation processes, but they take a secondary role compared to the identified three main benefits.

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