The Open Group has published the Exploration and Mining Business Reference Model (EM Model), the first deliverable developed by the Exploration, Mining, Metals and Minerals Vertical (EMMMvTM) forum. Member organisations from Australia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom created the standard to be an industry business process model that defines the common activities for organisations in the exploration and mining sectors. The EM Model establishes an operational blueprint for organisations that impacts the definition of business activities across the industry and provides standard operating practices and support for vendors in their delivery of technical and business solutions to the industry.
“The EM Model is the result of a truly global, collaborative effort to provide the exploration and mining industries with a common language and a common definition of business activities so organisations are confident their operations are understood. This will enable them to focus their ongoing efforts on differentiating activities that will provide competitive advantage,” said Sarina Viljoen, EMMMv forum director, Real IRM. “We’re confident that the model caters to business activities of exploration and mining organisations focused on all types of metals and minerals and believe the model is the first step towards aligning the conversations around topics such as shared services, health, safety and the environment. As the first vertical industry standard produced by The Open Group, the EM model defines the business processes that span both business and technology in a way that we like to call from the boardroom to the rock face.”
The EM Model, as the first deliverable of a proposed set of reference models for EMMMv, is focused on the business processes of the industry. Although the model spans all of the processes within the scope of exploration and mining, organisations that focus on a subset of the processes will still find the model useful. These types of organisations will concentrate only on the activities defined in the standard that are applicable to their core business.
By classifying and defining the business activities applicable to exploration and mining for metals and minerals, organisations and their suppliers and partners using the EM model are able to speak a common language when discussing business activities, solutions and services. The standard and the subsequent associated reference models facilitate an improved information exchange within organisations, giving different organisational stakeholders a shared understanding of the information required to execute business activities and the roles required to support them.
The EMMMv forum is a global collaborative that was formed in 2008 under the auspices of The Open Group to set enterprise architecture standards for the exploration, mining, metals and minerals industries. As the first initiative of its kind worldwide it oversees the creation of reference models specific to the industry. Founding members include Real IRM, the official representative of The Open Group in South Africa, Datamine, Lonmin, Rio Tinto Mining and Exploration and The Open Group itself. Today, nine organisations have joined EMMMV.
To download the new EM Model, and for further information on the EMMMv, please visit http://www.opengroup.org/emmmv/