Key Insight
Client
Global Mining Corporation
Projects Awarded
$1.2bn in projects awarded through the portal
Registered Suppliers
3000+ registered suppliers
Opportunities
1,105 work packages / contract opportunities
Rio Tinto’s Pilbara iron ore business is one of the largest single-region mining operations in the world. The supply chain that keeps it running is correspondingly enormous. Even small percentage shifts in who gets to compete for that work translate into hundreds of millions of dollars flowing differently through the Western Australian economy.
In the late 2010s, Rio Tinto made a public commitment to broaden and modernise its WA local procurement program. The intent was clear. Get more contracts in front of more locally-based suppliers, lift transparency around upcoming work, and make it genuinely competitive for businesses across the state to participate in the iron ore supply chain. IONYX was awarded the project and delivered the procurement portal in 45 days.
The Challenge
The procurement systems Rio Tinto’s iron ore business had been operating with were typical of major mining operators of the era.
Heavily manual, document-and-email driven, and fundamentally invisible to suppliers who weren’t already inside the network. A WA business looking for opportunities in the iron ore supply chain didn’t have a single place to find them. Tendering processes were inconsistent, awareness of upcoming work was uneven, and the practical effect was that locally-awarded contracts skewed toward incumbents who already knew how to navigate the system.
For Rio Tinto, the cost of that opacity was real. Limited supplier diversity meant limited supply chain resilience, longer lead times when primary suppliers couldn’t deliver, and reputational pressure as both government and Pilbara communities looked harder at how much of the multi-billion-dollar iron ore spend was actually flowing to local businesses. Internally, the team was carrying the cost of high resource and process overhead just to run the existing tendering machinery.
The procurement program the new portal needed to support had to address all of it. Awareness, access, fair tendering, supplier verification, supply chain security, and the change management required to land a new way of working with both the internal procurement team and the WA supplier base.
The procurement process can be characterised by manual and resource-intensive activities.
The global mining group had challenges across bureaucracy and transparency of contract dealings. Among offline supply chain management, inaccurate data, long lead times and procurement cycles. This caused significant market risks, potential frauds, cost, low-quality and delivery risks.
Main pain points
- Lack of awareness of tendering opportunities
- Disparity in locally awarded contracts
- Inadequate tendering processes
- Unable to guarantee supply chain security
- High resource and process costs
- Change management support and training
The Solution
IONYX built a customised procurement portal on the Local Suppliers Portal platform, designed specifically for Rio Tinto’s iron ore procurement program. The portal published upcoming work packages publicly, enabled WA suppliers to register and prequalify themselves into the procurement environment, and gave Rio Tinto’s procurement team a single operational platform for managing engagement across the entire supplier base.
The platform delivered the working machinery the program needed. A public procurement portal where potential suppliers could see and engage with upcoming work opportunities. A built-in supplier registration and prequalification process so new entrants could meet Rio Tinto’s standards without manual back-and-forth. A single point of opportunity management for suppliers covering tender submission and supply management. A client-side portal for Rio Tinto’s procurement team to verify, manage, and access reputable suppliers. And a dynamic vendor database that became the operational source of truth for the program.
Around that core, the platform added the operational reporting Rio Tinto needed to demonstrate program outcomes to both internal stakeholders and external observers. Live statistical reporting on Local Government Area spend, supplier-level spend, and category-level spend, all visible without manual data assembly.
The 45-day delivery was a function of working from the productised Local Suppliers Portal foundation rather than building from scratch. Rio Tinto got a portal customised to its program, on its brand, with its operational requirements, in a fraction of the time a fully bespoke build would have demanded.
The global mining group tendered a dedicated in-house procurement team and online portal to publish procurement opportunities and spending with WA-based suppliers. IONYX was awarded the project and delivered the solution in 45 days.
The customised procurement portal provides transparency of upcoming work opportunities and enables local suppliers to compete for contracts with the world-leading iron ore business.
- A procurement web portal for potential suppliers to engage and be awarded contracts
- Built-in supplier registration portal and pre-qualification process
- Supplier single point of opportunity management, submission to tender and supply management
- Client portal to verify and access reputable suppliers
- Dynamic vendor database
The mining corporation aims to strengthen communities wherever they operate
These procurement practices capture the mining corporation’s commitment to partner with local WA-based suppliers and support local industry growth.
A single system to manage all supply chain needs
- Automated functionality to allow for ease-of-use, cost control and maximised production
- Consolidated ordering and management
- Live statistical reporting, including LGA Spend, Supplier Spend and Category Spend
- Ease-to-use procurement process to minimise internal and supplier user training
The Results
The Buy Local portal turned Rio Tinto’s WA local procurement program from a stated commitment into a working operational platform. Local suppliers gained a single, transparent place to see upcoming opportunities and compete on equal footing. Rio Tinto’s procurement team gained the operational tooling and live reporting visibility to actually run the program at scale. And the public commitment to growing WA supplier participation gained a measurable mechanism for delivering on it.
Projects Awarded
$1.2bn in resource projects awarded through the portal
Registered Suppliers
3,000+ registered suppliers across the WA supply base
Opportunities
1,105 work packages and contract opportunities published
Fast Delivery
45 days from contract award to delivered platform
The downstream effects spread further than the contract numbers themselves. Greater supplier diversity translated into stronger supply chain resilience, fewer operating stoppages, and reduced cost of supply across the iron ore business. Local communities benefited from sustained business activity and the multiplier effect that flows from contracts staying local. And Rio Tinto’s social licence in the regions that host its operations strengthened on the back of a procurement program that genuinely changed who got to participate.
The iron ore supplier portal has improved visibility of upcoming contracts, providing the opportunity for locally based businesses to participate in resource projects. The new procurement practices, and those of their suppliers, have helped sustain many Western Australian businesses and, in turn, local communities. Improving these practices, and providing increased opportunity for local suppliers, has stimulated local economies to deliver socio-economic benefits for communities, suppliers and the organisation.
The mining corporation has experienced increased quality of supply, supply chain efficiencies and reduced cost. Attributing to greater security over critical supply and reduction of operating stoppages. The heightened investment to build trust with local communities’ and relationships with governments has strengthened the organisations social license.
