Putting soft OR methods to work: Information systems strategy development at Palabora

A consultancy project to develop an information systems (IS) strategy for a copper mine located in South Africa is described. The mine is operated by the UK based mining company RTZ, the world's largest mining company. The approach taken was based on an earlier project at Sainsbury's, a major food and grocery retailing chain in the UK. At Sainsbury's a participative approach made use of a number of models and methods developed by the advocates of soft OR and systems thinking. The aim of the Palabora project was to test whether the same participative approach, suitably adapted, would work in a completely different context, and more generally whether this could form the basis of a standard method to be applied at a variety of mine sites. The paper describes the design of the intervention process and the choice of methods for the particular mining context of Palabora. Account had to be taken of the nature of the operation, the remote location and the limited time available. The intervention proved successful, resulting in both an IS strategy for the mine which has since been implemented and a participative approach for IS strategy development for use at other mine sites. However, the soft OR methods played a less signficiant role than first envisaged. Lessons are drawn for future applications of soft OR methods for strategy development in different circumstances.