Toilet Rolls and Rail Maintenance
“We stick a toilet roll on the back of the wagon to let ‘em know which one needs to be swapped out for repair.”
In 2016, as the classic 23-year-old, fresh out of university management consultant, I embarked on my first project to Port Hedland to help one of the world’s largest mining companies with their rail operations. In the face of multiple train derailments, we were brought in to help with preventative maintenance planning and performance controls to save money, improve efficiency and prevent injuries.
For those not lucky enough to have graced the beautiful red sands of the Pilbara, Port Hedland acts as the central hub to which iron ore and other bulk commodities are transported via rail from the various mines of the area, for eventual shipping to Australia’s export partners. The scale of the operation is immense. The typical rail journey encompasses a 2.9km train made up of 268 connected wagons transporting tens of millions of dollars worth of ore for 8 hours on the 400km journey from mine to port. Finding yourself stuck at a level crossing waiting for one of these giant trains to pass added 15 minutes (and a few swear words) to the commute around town.
In learning about the operation of these trains, the longest and heaviest in the world, the rolling stock maintenance manager proudly explained the existing method of communicating which wagons needed to be removed for maintenance. The train workers would place fresh toilet rolls on a small rod that jutted out from the wall of each wagon as a kind of visible flag for the maintenance crews as to which wagons needed to be pulled out. There was a furious uproar when I suggested that the toilet paper should maybe make way for a digital systemised approach. For the time being the wellbeing of these trains would be left in the hands of white Kleenex flapping in the wind.
An Industry Playing Catch Up
Fast forward 7 years to meeting the CorePlan team for the first time in 2023. I naively presumed the mining industry must have caught up in the digital stakes. Instead Allen and I heard tales of exploration drillers filling out paper based logs on top of giant drill rigs, and manual opaque invoicing that saw mining companies over or under charged hundreds of thousands if not millions by their drilling contractors. Indeed the industry as a whole continues to lag in the digital stakes. BCG estimates1 put the mining industry some 30-40% less digitally mature than similar industries such as automotive, chemicals, and logistics.
Alex Goulios founded CorePlan against this backdrop. Prior to starting CorePlan, Alex spent the better part of a decade as CSA Global’s Head of Digital, helping Tier 1 miners take their operations forward with technology. Time again he saw miners without the software needed to take their exploration activities to the next level.
In CorePlan he built a two sided operating system for the mining industry. Drillers finally have a fit for purpose solution to manage their business - from drilling logs to time sheets, invoicing and payroll. For miners, the software provides a new age solution to approve drilling logs, reconcile invoices, plan and budget drilling programs, track production, confirm environmental and spatial compliance and manage rehabilitation programs.
Riding The Wave
Alex was joined shortly after establishing CorePlan by COO Sachee Perera who joined from the early team establishing Uber in Australia. Together they’ve gone about rapidly building CorePlan into a first class global enterprise software business. Today the business services 76 customers across Australia, Asia, Africa and North America. Tier 1 customers include the likes of BHP’s Nickel West, Fortescue Metals Group and Anglogold Ashanti.
Demand for the solution is as strong as we’ve seen amongst the businesses we review. With the global transition to renewable energy and the accompanying demand for critical minerals, CorePlan’s prospects have been clamoring to onboard. A new generation of geologists, accustomed to cloud technology, is dragging the industry into the cloud era, passionately advocating for CorePlan amongst their peers. The business’ plentiful flow of inbound sales leads are the stuff of dreams for the typical enterprise software startup.
Our customer calls pointed to extremely happy clients who consistently volunteered the exceptional ROI they were seeing on their spend on the CorePlan software. Multiple drilling contractors have gone so far as to advertise on their websites the fact that they use CorePlan to manage their business in order to win work from miners. It became clear quickly from these conversations that CorePlan’s product suite was the Rolls Royce solution. Feedback pointed specifically to the enterprise capabilities of the product which set it a world apart from other legacy products in the market that were not built to manage the complexities of multi-geography, multi-project and hundreds of contractors.
We’re incredibly excited to partner with the CorePlan team for their first external capital raise. In the CorePlan product we see a mission critical disruptive product making a critical contribution to a core Australian industry. Alex and Sachee represent the A-team with the right industry background and start-up hustle to deliver on their ambitious plans for the business and industry as a whole. We’re excited to have a front row seat for the action ahead as mining joins the rest of the world in the cloud era.
***
1 Racing Toward a Digital Future in Metals and Mining - BCG
Toilet Rolls and Rail Maintenance
“We stick a toilet roll on the back of the wagon to let ‘em know which one needs to be swapped out for repair.”
In 2016, as the classic 23-year-old, fresh out of university management consultant, I embarked on my first project to Port Hedland to help one of the world’s largest mining companies with their rail operations. In the face of multiple train derailments, we were brought in to help with preventative maintenance planning and performance controls to save money, improve efficiency and prevent injuries.
For those not lucky enough to have graced the beautiful red sands of the Pilbara, Port Hedland acts as the central hub to which iron ore and other bulk commodities are transported via rail from the various mines of the area, for eventual shipping to Australia’s export partners. The scale of the operation is immense. The typical rail journey encompasses a 2.9km train made up of 268 connected wagons transporting tens of millions of dollars worth of ore for 8 hours on the 400km journey from mine to port. Finding yourself stuck at a level crossing waiting for one of these giant trains to pass added 15 minutes (and a few swear words) to the commute around town.
In learning about the operation of these trains, the longest and heaviest in the world, the rolling stock maintenance manager proudly explained the existing method of communicating which wagons needed to be removed for maintenance. The train workers would place fresh toilet rolls on a small rod that jutted out from the wall of each wagon as a kind of visible flag for the maintenance crews as to which wagons needed to be pulled out. There was a furious uproar when I suggested that the toilet paper should maybe make way for a digital systemised approach. For the time being the wellbeing of these trains would be left in the hands of white Kleenex flapping in the wind.
An Industry Playing Catch Up
Fast forward 7 years to meeting the CorePlan team for the first time in 2023. I naively presumed the mining industry must have caught up in the digital stakes. Instead Allen and I heard tales of exploration drillers filling out paper based logs on top of giant drill rigs, and manual opaque invoicing that saw mining companies over or under charged hundreds of thousands if not millions by their drilling contractors. Indeed the industry as a whole continues to lag in the digital stakes. BCG estimates1 put the mining industry some 30-40% less digitally mature than similar industries such as automotive, chemicals, and logistics.
Alex Goulios founded CorePlan against this backdrop. Prior to starting CorePlan, Alex spent the better part of a decade as CSA Global’s Head of Digital, helping Tier 1 miners take their operations forward with technology. Time again he saw miners without the software needed to take their exploration activities to the next level.
In CorePlan he built a two sided operating system for the mining industry. Drillers finally have a fit for purpose solution to manage their business - from drilling logs to time sheets, invoicing and payroll. For miners, the software provides a new age solution to approve drilling logs, reconcile invoices, plan and budget drilling programs, track production, confirm environmental and spatial compliance and manage rehabilitation programs.
Riding The Wave
Alex was joined shortly after establishing CorePlan by COO Sachee Perera who joined from the early team establishing Uber in Australia. Together they’ve gone about rapidly building CorePlan into a first class global enterprise software business. Today the business services 76 customers across Australia, Asia, Africa and North America. Tier 1 customers include the likes of BHP’s Nickel West, Fortescue Metals Group and Anglogold Ashanti.
Demand for the solution is as strong as we’ve seen amongst the businesses we review. With the global transition to renewable energy and the accompanying demand for critical minerals, CorePlan’s prospects have been clamoring to onboard. A new generation of geologists, accustomed to cloud technology, is dragging the industry into the cloud era, passionately advocating for CorePlan amongst their peers. The business’ plentiful flow of inbound sales leads are the stuff of dreams for the typical enterprise software startup.
Our customer calls pointed to extremely happy clients who consistently volunteered the exceptional ROI they were seeing on their spend on the CorePlan software. Multiple drilling contractors have gone so far as to advertise on their websites the fact that they use CorePlan to manage their business in order to win work from miners. It became clear quickly from these conversations that CorePlan’s product suite was the Rolls Royce solution. Feedback pointed specifically to the enterprise capabilities of the product which set it a world apart from other legacy products in the market that were not built to manage the complexities of multi-geography, multi-project and hundreds of contractors.
We’re incredibly excited to partner with the CorePlan team for their first external capital raise. In the CorePlan product we see a mission critical disruptive product making a critical contribution to a core Australian industry. Alex and Sachee represent the A-team with the right industry background and start-up hustle to deliver on their ambitious plans for the business and industry as a whole. We’re excited to have a front row seat for the action ahead as mining joins the rest of the world in the cloud era.
***
1 Racing Toward a Digital Future in Metals and Mining - BCG