Case Study: Fresnillo boosts silver recovery with Minitab

Digging Deep Fresnillo Increases Silver Recovery with Lean Six Sigma

Fresnillo, the world’s largest primary silver producer and Mexico’s second-largest gold producer, needed to increase silver recovery at its Saucito mine without reducing the grade of the final concentrate. Working with Minitab and Minitab Statistical Software, the company used data analysis to identify controllable sources of variation in a process that depended on non-controllable raw ore quality.

Minitab helped Fresnillo apply Lean Six Sigma, Design of Experiments, regression, and capability analysis to optimize reagent settings and redesign the mine’s distribution control system. The result was a 2% increase in silver recovery, a 68% reduction in below-grade silver, 12% less reagent consumption, and more than $2 million in additional monthly revenue.

Fresnillo

Román Cruz

Project leader and Lean Six Sigma Black Belt