As the COVID-19 pandemic had sent many industries reeling from its adverse impact, IBM and Royal Dutch Shell turned their attention to the mining sector. Although engaged in a largely different line of business, they were able to launch a global Business-to-Business (B2B) mining-centric digital market place called Oren in June 2020.
According to Nicoline Braat, a Partner at IBM Services, the collaboration brings Royal Dutch Shell’s expertise in energy and lubricants services, founded on its strong B2B relationships with the mining and industrial businesses. Oren will serve as a mining marketplace for new technologies to help mining businesses rapidly digitalize their mining operations.
What Oren Offers as a Mining-Centric Digital Market Place
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has made it necessary for mining firms to keep a balanced approach to increasing mine production back to pre-pandemic levels while maintaining worker safety. It is seen by the mining industry as a tightrope act because onsite mine workers have to work in close proximity. The need to physically distance mine workers apart while at the same increase meet the productivity levels without a repeat of the early 2020 infection chaos requires automation and digitalization.
The IBM and Shell partnership will make a broad range of proven and innovative IBM-hosted solutions and services accessible to potential mining clients through the Oren platform. On the other hand, the platform will also open new opportunities for software developers to efficiently put their products in front of mining businesses.
Carol Chen, the head of Shell’s Lubricants Global Marketing said Oren brings together in one place, the most innovative and world-leading tools and technologies that can help mining companies, digitalise their existing workflow as a means to increase productivity under the modern standards of safety and sustainability.
After all, IBM’s experience in providing leading cloud-based AI, data, and analytics solutions, is backed by more than 100 years of experience of digitally serving mining and industrial companies.
