Analyzing and modeling resilience in the mineral supply chain's upstream segment

The upstream segment of the minerals supply chain (MiSC) plays a crucial role in securing the supply of minerals needed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The MiSC's upstream segment encompasses processes related to discovering, extracting, and transforming ore into mineral commodities up to their commercialization. However, it faces significant challenges, including resource depletion, environmental issues, geopolitical risks, increasing demand for sustainable practices, and price fluctuations in mineral commodities. These challenges, coupled with the global dependence on critical minerals for renewable energy technologies, highlight the urgent need to enhance the resilience of this segment, thus converting this segment into a reliable partner for the global Supply Chain.
While the concept of Supply Chain Resilience (SCRes) has been widely studied, research has primarily focused on the downstream segment, the manufacturing industry. The MiSC's upstream segment, in contrast, has received limited attention, leaving its unique industrial dynamics and vulnerabilities, such as finite resource depletion, long project development timelines, and exposure to regulatory and geopolitical disruptions, underexplored. Addressing these gaps is crucial to strengthening the MiSC end-to-end and ensuring its pivotal role in a carbon-neutral future.
This dissertation addresses this gap by proposing a systematized conceptual framework designed to model resilience in the upstream segment of the MiSC (MiSCOR Res). MiSCOR Res integrates resilience constructs specific to the upstream industrial context within a standardized framework, enabling seamless integration with existing downstream models. This framework aims to mitigate unique vulnerabilities, ensure a sustainable and reliable supply of critical minerals, and improve supply chain transparency and visibility.
The research employs the Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM), beginning with identifying requirements to develop MiSCOR Res. This initial stage contextualizes the challenges, emphasizing their industrial relevance. The analysis establishes a theoretical foundation for understanding resilience in the upstream segment, translating it into a standardized conceptual framework aligned with operational actions.
Two foundational pillars underpin MiSCOR Res. First, it defines key resilience constructs tailored to the MiSC' upstream segment context, defining the capabilities to build resilience: robustness, the ability to withstand disruptions; recovery, the capacity to restore operations effectively; and adaptation, the flexibility to adjust to changing conditions. These constructs provide a theoretical framework for addressing specific upstream challenges. Second, the dissertation introduces the MiSCOR framework, a standardized model representing mining business processes while ensuring compatibility with downstream operations, fostering an integrated supply chain perspective.
Building on these pillars, MiSCOR Res incorporates resilience constructs into a standardized business process modeling approach. This approach captures the complexities and operational dynamics of the upstream segment, proposing tailored strategies for robustness, recovery, and adaptability. MiSCOR Res provides practical guidelines at strategic, tactical, and operational levels, establishing itself as a tool to ensure the continuity and sustainability of critical mineral supplies.
The validation of MiSCOR Res was conducted through a case study on a disruptive event traced over 3 years in a copper mining operation. The case study demonstrated the framework's capacity to model resilience strategies, visibility decision-making, and enable operational adjustments in response to disruptions. These findings underscore the practicality and effectiveness of MiSCOR Res in mitigating interruptions and fostering sustainable practices in a risk-prone industrial environment.
This research contributes to the literature on risk management and supply chain resilience by offering a context-specific conceptual framework. It establishes a systematic methodology for conceptualizing and operationalizing resilience in the upstream segment of the MiSC, ensuring scientific rigor and applicability. By addressing the segment’s specific needs, this work emphasizes the critical importance of resilience in ensuring the sustainability of mineral supply chains amidst growing global demand for critical resources.