We have developed a powerful suite of tools and solutions to help our metals-and-mining clients drive performance. Here are some examples:
Metals and Mining Commodity Models
More than ten in-depth, proprietary models cover everything from global crude steel capacity evolution, to iron ore supply, to global aluminum demand, to copper supply. These tools provide clients with detailed cost data for each commodity, supply forecasts, demand evolution per user segment, and the outlook for each industry’s future evolution.
Mining Value Pools
These tools help clients gain deeper understanding into the fundamentals of core commodities and their evolution. They harness McKinsey’s proprietary industry perspective, covering supply, demand, trade flows, and the future vision of all major commodities.
MineLens
This in-depth operational benchmark database covers both open-pit and underground mines, across ten commodities and six regions. The tool enables mines and mining companies to compare specific aspects of their operational performance against their peers, highlighting gaps and improvement opportunities. (We offer similar operational benchmarks in steel and other areas of metals production.) Our clients have used MineLens to identify and capture throughput improvements of 12–25 percent and capital-expenditure (capex) savings of 10–20 percent. An Australian thermal coal mine, for example, used the tool to drive improvements resulting in a $30 million increase in profits.
Learn more on the MineLens site
Rapid Yield Boost
The tool combines McKinsey’s mining expertise with big data and advanced analytics. It harnesses all available historical plant data to challenge the existing “truth” on performance drivers with credible analyses—and translates them into actionable recommendations to boost the bottom line without additional capex. For example, we used the tool to help an African gold mine boost yield by 8 percent despite a drop in grade—and thus create options to extend the life of the mine.
Stay in Business
The tool optimizes capital projects to cut costs and enhance long-term value, drawing on McKinsey’s deep experience in capex transformations and our proprietary, customizable portfolio-optimizer tool and project-valuation models. We have used Stay in Business to reduce our clients’ capex by 30 percent—while building sustainable client capabilities through a proven train-the-trainer approach.
McKinsey Investment Readiness Assessment (MIRA)
This is a revolutionary approach to evaluating large projects at any stage of delivery, designed by industry veterans and leading capital project professionals who have worked on hundreds of large capital projects globally. MIRA delivers a detailed, fact-based, quantitative score of the project’s readiness for the next stage of funding, a concise and incisive action plan to ensure successful project delivery, and a robust assessment of the project’s underlying business case and the magnitude of associated risks.
Purchasing and Supply Management (PSM) Tools
This powerful suite of tools helps our clients optimize procurement. The McKinsey Spend Analysis Tool allows web-based aggregation, cleansing, and classification of complex spend data across multiple systems and currencies. Our Category Savings database provides industry- and category-specific savings benchmarks based on our global procurement experience, while our Procurement Excellence database distills best practices from over 1,000 procurement organizations.
Value-in-use
McKinsey’s value-in-use tools harness advanced analytics and our global industry expertise. For steel plants, we optimize raw materials mix through proprietary models for blast furnaces and converters—helping clients achieve EBIDTA increases of up to 2 percentage points in just 2-3 months. For non-ferrous metals producers, our integrated, analytical approach helps maximize value in raw materials sales, purchasing, and processing—rapidly boosting margins by as much as 20 percent.