Last April 28th more than 86 Canadian suppliers connected to the “Expande’s Online Supplier Engagement Workshop” to learn all about BHP’s Supply Innovation Program and how to participate in it through our open innovation program Expande.
The initiative included the participation of the Trade Commissioner at the Canadian Embassy in Chile, Gonzalo Muñoz; Principal Supply Innovation Minerals Americas of BHP María José Araneda; Global Trade Director, Andrea Gaunt, and Global Trade Director- Mining, Al Pritchard, both from Export Development Canada (EDC) and Business director of Expande, Andres Mitnik.
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If you missed the workshop or just want to have a copy of what was presented, we invite you to download the presentation here: https://bit.ly/2YmRH7s
What is Expande? How does it operate with BHP and Supply Innovation?
Expande is an open innovation program aimed to provide edge solutions for the mining industry. Its goal is to help develop an innovation ecosystem around the mining industry able to provide the solutions companies are seeking today and will require tomorrow. All this using a collaborative approach. To this end, Expande currently works with mining companies with operations in Chile including Antofagasta Minerals, BHP, CODELCO, and TECK managing their open innovation challenges. These challenges are posted as problems for which participating companies expect to identify a broad set of approaches and technological solutions. The methodology helps mining companies implement novel ideas while at the same time provides an opportunity for innovative suppliers to access mining clients.
Supply Innovation facilitates an Open Innovation methodology in BHP to access technological and entrepreneurial capabilities to solve operational challenges. It does so by identifying and prioritizing critical business challenges, aligned with BHP’s priorities and launching them to the market, not specifying a product or service, rather asking for a solution. Then, a pilot on-site is awarded to prove the solution is viable.
BHP and Expande have been working together to find innovative solutions to operational challenges since 2017, so far they have launched more than 50 challenges.
The BHP Challenge process is composed of seven phases and begins with a description of the challenge and expectations by BHP. With this information, Expande starts the scouting process posting the pre-qualification information on-line at www.expandemineria.cl and inviting companies to participate . Then, selected suppliers are notified, provided with further details and are invited to be part of the face to face Challenge Launch to better understand the process and the problem.
After this, suppliers have 15 days to submit their technical-economical proposals in an established format. Once the company receives the proposals it begins the evaluation process that can take around 3 months, some times more depending in the complexity of the challenge. The process ends when a supplier is awarded the contract for a pilot to prove their solution on site.
Selection process timeline and launch program
