Organizational warping in the transition and interaction process between mining configurations.

1
the sommelier models

ORGANIZATIONAL WARPING IN THE TRANSITION AND

INTERACTION PROCESS BETWEEN MINING CONFIGURATIONS.

THE SOMMELIER MODEL

 ABSTRACT

Codelco will revolutionize underground mining as we know it today. The large infrastructure

developed should be automated and monitored according to the most recent advances in the

field. This means minimizing the number of field operators and the use of autonomous

equipment. It implies a systemic conception of the operation to allow the remote control of

communications and connectivity of the organization, making possible its coordination,

cohesion and management. The foregoing requires the implementation of an integrated

technological model, which includes semi-autonomous operation from an integrated

operations and control center, but for this to happen, the entire organization needs to be

adjusted. We propose a systemic model based on the control of the Organizational Entropy

(Variety No Required VNR), which would reduce the loss of value (waste) generated by

incoherence in the decision-making processes, break in the continuity of the information

flows by poorly designed organizational structures and by the high risk in redundancy values

as a result of the disconnection between people, the required competencies, existing resources

and assigned procedures. The model called Sommelier was the product of the early

experience of organizational warping developed at the Chuquicamata Underground

Mine.Abstract Abstract Abstract Abstract

Keywords: Organizational Transformation; Relational Viability; Variety; Viable Relational Model (VRM).
 INTRODUCTION

Today in Chile, the Chuquicamata Underground Mine is a strategic structural project that involves

the transformation of the world's largest open pit into a giant underground operation that will allow

the exploitation of part of the resources that will remain under the current reservoir, Chile for

almost 100 years - will cease to be profitable within the next decade.

About 1.7 billion tons of copper (0.7%) and molybdenum (502 ppm) reserves have been quantified

under the pipeline, representing more than 60% of what has been exploited in the last 90 years. The

technical and economic option advises exploiting these reserves through the construction of an

underground mine, which will be one of the largest, most modern, and efficient in the world.

Today, Chuquicamata operates at increasingly higher costs, due to the lowering of the ore law

(from 1.03% to 0.8% average in the last 10 years) and the enormous distances that must go through

the giant trucks - More than 300 tons of cargo - to move the material from the bottom of the rake,

which is already 1,200 meters deep. Each of the 70 trucks operating at the site runs an average of

22 kilometers on each round trip from the bottom of the mine to the surface and consumes 3,100

liters of oil per day. Therefore, the aggregate cost of this item reaches 217 cubic meters of fuel each

day. By 2018 this cost will be unsustainable because other increases, such as energy, inputs,

equipment, and labor, will be added in the meantime. Therefore, the change from a configuration of

mineral production to open production to an underground production not only involves the design

of a strategy in the management of material energy resources but a profound change in the

conception of organizational viability, everything Which involves not only dealing with learning

with a view to the future, changing practices and operational excellence but also, establishing a new

conception of mining. We are accustomed to seeing and conceiving companies as if they were the
organization chart of a hierarchical organization. In the management and management committees

these hierarchical schemes are reproduced, and from them are selected solutions and strategies that

must do directly with this hierarchical image that we have of them, and replicates, from the highest

levels, the same logic from strata and hierarchies to the lowest levels of the chain of command.

However, it should not be forgotten that this reductionism in the representation of organizations

with this mental image we have of them is a legacy both of the emergence of the Industrial

Revolution and the history of religious and military institutions of years ago, and in The practice,

has very little to do with the real complexity that is typical of the companies and organizations of

the 21st century.

For the achievement of change, mentioned above, we have aptly applied as tools to support

strategic decisions, advances in Cognitive Sciences in general, as well as advances in organizational

cybernetic knowledge.

Our strategy was designed based on redefining Stafford Beer's conception of organizational

viability given that the VMS model generates a series of pathologies in the organization that

respond to a dissociated view of the relational process. This involved moving from a concept of

viability to that of systemic relational viability, which fundamentally responds to understanding

how sustainability and relational systems are coupled as a conservation strategy for the

organization. Therefore, to design Chuquicamata underground, from a systemic relational vision,

implies conceiving it as a network of cooperative relations that are structured based on processes

with the overall purpose of producing fine copper. The basic relational unit is conceived as the

network within a given area and the processes associated with it. It is a fact that each group or

network of agents expresses a way of making the decisions that must be carried out daily for the

continuity of the processes. Thus, each network legitimates a way of acting or doing with them.
In today's world, intangible assets and values hold the attention of large corporations and

governments, most notably knowledge as an essential value, which has been making its way in

societies and largely determines production, Governance practices, the processes that are developed

and the resources that are used. In this process of knowledge integration, organizations have been

forced to introduce new concepts that have to do with the way they conceive of their patterns of

action and their dynamics of operation, in order to be able to propagate their value as an

organization, Taking into account, in particular, the complexity and agility that we must face under

the current conditions of scientific and technical development.

The possibilities of the propagation of value are related to the organizational culture that oversees

enabling the channels by which this propagation will be possible, which is based mainly on two

aspects: relationships and processes. For this same reason, if current conditions involve taking into

account fundamental factors such as the complexity of relationships, the speed of change and the

coherence of actions, management models based on rigid hierarchical structures will limiting and

hindering the spread of value throughout the organization and will end up generating within the

organization a large amount of what we can call waste, which translates into a chain of errors and

bad practices. An example of such waste may be a lack of coordination between areas, repetition of

work, lack of commitments by different parties, collapses in planning, preference for non-priority

functional objectives and other failures whose cause is usually called "indefinite".

As we are seeing, the process of evolution of the organizations in the present should be oriented to

the development of flexible structures that allow accommodating the qualities that will make

possible the propagation of the value in a company, which is created on the basis of scientific and

technicians to which they have access, that is, to knowledge. This new way of thinking in the

organizations of the 21st century is to begin to see and understand the configuration of networks of
relationships, that is, of the foundations that will help us to carry out a good strategy of creation and

propagation of value.

So far, we have not had at hand conceptual models that have been able to describe other forms of

process structures that explain coherently the organizational dynamics, nor has there been the

possibility of making a diagnosis of its configuration, allowing it to would ensure the strategic

viability of the company. It is necessary to should us to end with the rigidity of hierarchies and to

focus on those so-called 'blank spaces' that go unnoticed in the organizational charts of companies.

In these "they live" the informal structures that sustain the organization and are the true value

producers.

In 2105, we applied the methodology of Strategic Process Intelligence ( Lavanderos & Massey,

2014) in the Chuquicamata division, a series of singularities were detected that preach about the

conditions of reliability, availability, traceability and decisional speed in the relational system

(culture) of the productive process. These singularities inherited historically, can be summarized as

follows:

 Lack of a systematic business vision

 High variety (Ashby,1958) and procedural variability

 Deacoplation of relational networks

These three singularities corroborate us that Management is based on processes of deficient

connection where there is no traceability in the flow of production and where decision-making

processes do not involve all the actors, the latter is expressed in ignorance of the binding activities,

starting from the synergy by complementary knowledge between management. The variety in the
processes at the same time is increased as an effect of the administrative bureaucracy to the extent

that it delays the requests for resources for the operation and acts independently.

In other words, what has been expressed above results in a disaggregated conception of the

business, privileging short value chains over long ones. Added to this, the excessive number and

quantity of procedures for the decisional process which generates high variability and little control

in the results, which strongly impacts on spending.

Overcoming the singularities necessarily implies the organizational redesign and the

reconfiguration of the processes in all their spectrum, which implies not only dealing with learning,

future perspectives, change of practices, operational excellence but to establish a new conception of

mining. This will allow us to ensure successful organizational viability from the transformation of

open pit mining to underground mining.

The organizational redesign and the reconfiguration of processes are fundamentally oriented

to reduce the variety and control its variability, from generating new structural and relational

diversity, to ensure both sustainability and sustainability of the mining network and its

environment.

The general objective of the proposal below is the systemic transformation of

Chuquicamata from redesigning the relational structure of the control network based on the control

of variety and variability of processes.

ORGANIZATIONAL CYBERNETICS AND STRATEGIC INTELLIGENCE

An essential tool for the design of organizational structures turns out to be organizational

cybernetics (OC). We understand by organizational cybernetics, the generation of knowledge that

allows us to understand and study organizations from their structure or network of relationships, to

assess their viability and how they show up in management. Part of the underlying methods
includes strategic process intelligence (SPI), ( Lavanderos & Massey, 2014),which makes it

possible to identify, neutralize, degrade and/or rebuild the relational information network. This is so

because the information network could generate singularities that result in the loss of coordination

and cohesion, affecting communication and generating waste in the management, that is, “non-

requisite variety".

The correction, anticipation and/or elimination of disruptive events, allows the value that is

advocated to propagate in the organizational network since it can be visualized as a "fluid" that

carries the semiotic sense of the political vision constituted in management, to achieve the strategic

objective. If we visualize this complex of fluids (semiotics), we can locate those "downed" bridges

slow down a stop or stop their dynamics of shared meanings. In other words, those relationships

that prioritize other types of flows to the detriment of the relational configuration that shares the

political vision. It is to these threats that we design the strategic process intelligence process (SPI)

(Lavanderos & Massey, 2014), as a method of correcting the relational structures that retard the

propagation and reproduction of the decisional strategy of the organization.

Structurally, two types of subnetworks can be distinguished; command-control, dedicated to

the reproduction of political vision, coordination, and dissemination of strategy among

management functions, and the data subnet; that which is dedicated to the flow of information

obtained by the operations centers to the analysis or command-control centers. Strictly speaking,

the organization is a constant process of construction of relational viability that demands a strategy

for the minimization of the non-requisite variety. For this reason, it is the domain of viability that

will determine what is possible or how willing is the organization to reduce waste to increase

profitability. This is what confronts "command", and its solution passes down by obligation,

spreading a political vision associated with a type of relational structure.

 THE CONCEPT OF RELATIONAL VIABILITY
Grounded in relational theory, (Bateson,1973,1980; Lahitte et al.,1987;Lahitte et al., 1989;

Malpartida, 1991;Lavanderos et al. 2017), a viable system is one that: "resolves its organizational

conservation through a strategy of structural change". Understanding as organization that entire set

of relationships that shape their identity as such, which implies maintaining their condition or

conservation. We understand that, in this line of thought, what can vary is only the structure

(relationships), if this supports or allows the organization to be carried out. In accordance with the

previous points, we will define the Viable Relational System (VRS) as a configuration of

relationship networks that has achieved a coherent coupling between its relational configuration

(Viability) and its material energy system (Sustainability), in such a way that it does not at risk the

relationships that generate and sustain the emergence of its organization.

The viability or relational quality is evaluated based on the coherence of command and the

congruence or exchange capacity intra and inter-network. Sustainability is evaluated based on the

set of breakdowns or gaps determined in the energy-material processes that define production. In

other words, the management of a VRS translates into coupling processes, be they by design or

redesign, with the possibilities of reconfiguring the network of relationships to approach the Pareto

80:20. Fig.1 below shows the conceptual basis for Viable Relational Systems (VRS).

An organization is relationally viable if its relationships make it viable. This affirmation is

fundamental when it comes to establishing the form that constitutes the relationality of an

organization. Under this vision any process is productive, it is not possible to separate them into
primary and support. The identity of the organization is not the result of what it produces, be it this

product or service, but the strategy to produce it. From this perspective, an organization can be

explained as a semiotic fluid, in which analogically with the irrigation channels, it must be

organized in such a way that the greatest effective extension and the best quality of meaning are

obtained. For this reason, the organization of the 21st century must say goodbye to the Taylor

model if it wishes to incorporate the cognitive domain as the value of the company

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Insert Figure 1 about here

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An organization is relationally viable if its relationships make it viable. This affirmation is

fundamental when it comes to establishing the form that constitutes the relationality of an

organization. Under this vision any process is productive, it is not possible to separate them into

primary and support. The identity of the organization is not the result of what it produces, be it this

product or service, but the strategy to produce it. From this perspective, an organization can be

explained as a semiotic fluid, in which analogically with the irrigation channels, it must be

organized in such a way that the greatest effective extension and the best quality of meaning are

obtained. For this reason, the organization of the 21st century must say goodbye to the Taylor

model if it wishes to incorporate the cognitive domain as the value of the company.

EVALUATION OF VIABILITY
As we pointed out in previous paragraphs, the robustness of viability is the result of the

form and degree in which the relational and the sustainable fit together. For this reason, the process

model is the appropriate field to evaluate this correspondence since this will unveil the coupling

strategy. On this basis, it is essential to evaluate the state of the relationship network (relational-

ability) and the structure of the energy-material heritage (sustainability).

 We have defined relational-ability as the relational state of the command network. Its

evaluation depends on two variables, namely:

• The relationship of the command with the manager, defined as coherence

• The relationship of the command (including the manager), defined as congruence

The concept of Organizational Coherence

We define coherence as the correspondence between decisions taken and actions carried out

concerning management. Organizational coherence unifies the declarations of the leader (manager)

about the strategies, goals, objectives, and priorities to pursue, and how these declarations are

understood and assimilated by subordinates throughout the chain of command. Organizational

coherence, when it is weak or non-existent, is one of the main factors in the failure to implement

the strategic plan and the effective execution of the business model.

The lack of organizational coherence is the greatest source of invisible expenses, waste that

directly impacts organizational effectiveness, reducing both the effectiveness and efficiency of the

organization.

The concept of Organizational Congruence

The correspondence between the decisions made and the actions taken as a whole is defined

as congruence, this includes management. This means that the general manager is incorporated as

another person within the network, so the evaluation is of all against all. The congruence evaluation

allows us to classify the network within certain typologies, for example, a simple addition of

people; as an operational team; or simply as a set or bunch of people. All of which directly impacts

the generation of value. The measurement of congruence assumes values between 0 to 1.

 For both consistency and congruence, the following variables are measured:
 • UNDERSTANDING: Evaluated as the proximity between what is declared and the

actions expected to the declaration.

• KNOWLEDGE: Evaluated as the closeness (similarity) in the logic used to solve

problems.

• CONFIDENCE: Evaluated based on the interactivity existing within the network,

detecting levels of trust/distrust

Once the diagnosis is complete, this entire process allows for an assessment of the degree of

congruence and strategic coherence existing within the executive team. This will allow us to

determine where are the main gaps in understanding, knowledge, and trust that limit the

implementation of the declared strategy or what needs to be done.

From Requisite Variety required to Non-Requisite Variety

A key concept in organizational cybernetics has been variety, understood as the number of

possible states of a system. Ashby's Requisite Variety Law (Ashby, 1956,1958) states that only

variety can absorb variety. However, the above statement is only valid when it is formulated in the

context of interactions, but it is not possible to sustain it when dealing with relationships as is the

case of human organizations. Thus, it is important to establish the difference between interaction

and relationship. The following example allows us to imagine the distinction of our proposal, for

example: In a game of chess, what you observe are schemes of action through the movement of

pieces and surely also, expressions of different types between the two players. However, you do not

have access to the relationship that both establish. This means that what we can observe and denote

are schemes of action and not the relationships that support those actions. Logically, these actions

arise from the distinctions that in the relationship feed the decision making of each of the players.

The actions put on the board can vary from attraction to repulsion, however; the content and
meaning that sustains these actions are not accessible to the observer, therefore, what we can

propose is diverse systematics and classifications of everything we could call behavior. If we

follow the above arguments, the variety of a relational system cannot be reduced to a number of

states (actions), given that; if we did, we would ignore all the complexity of the relationship of the

actors involved and in turn our relationship as observers of these, in other words, we would be

cheating.

The difference that arises from what is manifest, which is the scheme of action and the

support of the same, is the cognitive relationship, this is fundamental and allows establishing the

difference between the concept of autopoiesis and ecopoiesis, (Lavanderos y Malpartida 2005;

Malpartida y Lavanderos, 2000;Maturana & Varela, 1992;Varela et al., 1991;Varela, 1998). The

first notion constitutes an important vision but one that is ultimately reductive, since to be coherent

it operates in the molecular sphere, that is, in the field of interactions, of causality, of the manifest.

The second notion, unlike the first, operates in the field of relationships, the links, of what is

underlying. The autopoiesis closes to bring closure, it divides what is internal from what is external;

in ecopoiesis, this is not necessary because the network of relations operates conserving those

relations that reproduce their organization spontaneously. In other words, what we have defined as

relational viability to differentiate it from Beer's definition(Beer, 1974,1985). Relational viability

operates from the strategy of coupling between the relational plane and that of energy-material

resources, ( Lavanderos & Massey, 2014). Along the same line, the loss of resources in an

organization depends on the introduction of "non-requisite variety", that is; of those relationships

that generate dissociation and loss of complexity, which interrupts decision-making, generating a

loss of organization. In this way, we could define non-requisite variety as follows: "For a relational

system, all forms of generation of non-requisite variety are produced by destroying requisite
variety." This is a fundamental difference with Ashby, (Ashby, 1956,1958)). This is so because a

great problem has been generated by confusing and associating the meanings of communication,

entropy, and information as homologs. Although it is possible to establish some correspondence,

the domain of application and knowledge of these formulations have nothing to do with the

relationship in the informational and semiotic sense. Therefore, although a mathematical

isomorphism can be established, it does not homologate the conceptual, (Callaos & Callaos, 1985).

In the domain of human organizations, non-requisite variety assumes the form of a law,

which can be exemplified as follows: Located within an organization, connective diversity, which

is what allows the exchange of variety, is weakened or destroyed in efficiency through the

introduction of delays, preventing or generating resistance to the flow of data necessary to the

decision and production process. We could add, from systems theory, that it would be introducing

summative properties of the elements of the system, which spoil the emergence of the constitutive

properties of the organization and, therefore; decision making related to the business. This happens,

every time a unit exchanges non-requisite variety, thus determining loss of control and output

variability.

So then, as we do not have access to the relational configuration, we are obliged to calculate

non-requisite variety based on the action schemes that occur in the network, isolating those

configurations that are organized as subnets of repulsion and that are responsible for generating the

increase of non-requisite variety and, consequently, costs in all ways, shapes and forms including

the costs of lost opportunity.

If we look at this from a controlled system, in cybernetics we must generate variety in such

a way that its design allows regulation and feedback that achieves the minimum required variety.

This implies understanding that the correspondence between the variety generated and the
minimum required does not have to be exact, necessary or feasible, but rather, it requires a variety

with a minimum complexity for the regulation of a system. The areas of diversity that interact and

must be regulated correspond to a consistent diversity in the system; the attenuation of such variety

must be intelligently designed.

On the other hand, even considering actions alone and to finish proposing our proposal with

an image regarding cybernetic thinking, we say: "we are interested not only in the fish we catch but

also in the ones we failed to catch". How do we map all those restrictions that elude us? - How

many fish did we not catch? - This is a non-requisite variety.

From the construction of the design to the model of the Viable Relational System (VRS)
Any organization or company, from our relational systemic viewpoint, rests in its

conception upon a network of relationships, which are structured on processes relating to the

production of products or services. The basic relational unit is built on the relationship between a

network and the associated production process. All of which are expressed in the form of decision

making. In this way, a network legitimizes the form of its task in relation to a process, which allows

access to 1) the variety or number of steps or signaled states; 2) to its variability or gap between

observed and expected results; 3) to the connective diversity or relational structures established to

carry out the process.

In previous paragraphs, we have indicated what we understand by the VRS; a holored,

which is co-formed from the coupling between the units of the fields of viability and sustainability,

in which, the correction of variety is not generated in the autonomic dynamics, but a spontaneous

process of selection of alternatives (epigenesis). The VRS has the condition of replicating itself,

within a recursive process of recalibration (stochastic), depending on the strategic objective of the
organization, to build network subsystems, which contribute to organization from its operations

and/or processes

Faced with this, we can do without what we call "the external or environment", to achieve

consistency between the operation and the administration we need to establish the relationships

between the knowledge network (administration) and processes (operation), which is achieved

through the art or culture of network tasks for these processes.

With these concepts, the relational network is designed from 3 elements that are generally

not thought of as a whole, these are the processes, the network that carries them out and the culture

or the "how they do it". In a second instance, it is necessary to consider how these 3 elements are

related, which leads us to the definition of VRS, for this, we have used the following concepts:

1. Variety: Number of states or distinctions declared to carry out a process

2. Variability: Gap observed between expected and observed

3. Connective Diversity: Quality in communication with other areas or functions that are

not directly involved in the process.

According to this, the VRS model is determined in the following way (Fig. 2)

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Insert Figure 2 about here

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As indicated above, the model is generated from calibrations that, within the research

process, ranging from design to formalization. Formally we would obtain a model like the

following (Fig. 3):

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Insert Figure 3 about here

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 The construction of the VRS model, states that for the reduction of the variability of the

processes involved in its management, the decision-making model of the knowledge network must

be made explicit, to expose the behavior of the variables that account for of the output of their

process. This allows not only the control of the same but also shows the transparency of results for

all actors involved in the value chain.

The VRS makes possible the integration of the entire scientific-technical area beginning

with co-control of variety and variability. Likewise, connective quality or diversity makes it

possible to establish the degree of collaboration with other areas, to control the variety of the

process that generates value. As an example; if a productive unit needs support from the

administrative areas, and this support is of low reciprocity, this diminishes the value of the

productive process. This is a form of variety that assumes values equal to or less than zero and

which we call a non-requisite variety. The generation of non-requisite variety or waste has a direct

impact on the success or failure of management.

THE ORIGIN OF NON-REQUISITE VARIETY

Conceptually, non-requisite variety refers to the relation involving the "cumulative

distribution" of differences between calculated or theoretical flows (for example, the KPIs), seen

from the systemic point of view, for an organization to function, versus the flows of fact or actual

operation. This takes into account the people involved; the communications structure that sustains

the tasks; the tasks developed; the inputs required for such purposes; the way planning takes place

for all the assignments needed to be developed and all the processes that must be executed. In such

a way that this cumulative distribution allows us to evaluate the strength and direction of the
totality of the systemic deviations that are actively distorting and structurally weakening the

organization.

Non-requisite variety, therefore, has its origins in planning deficiencies, unbudgeted issues,

supervening situations and improvisations that significantly affect the availability of resources,

especially the use of time and the pace of operations and of course, rigidity that does not allow the

adoption of other recursive, analytical and integrated forms, needed to lead an organization.

The systemic support where this phenomenon is detected is called a Holored. This construct

is based on three integrated formal networks (organization, processes, and flows), where each

occupies a level and is interconnected in an integrated way. Such a provision engenders a

"spontaneous topology" that allows us to calculate all the relationships among its elements,

privileging in every one of the elements involved the use of the VRS relational structure. This

allows us to determine the level of non-requisite variety and obtain the systemic concepts necessary

to interpret the levels of viability and complexity that arise from the coupling of the three networks.

The VRS integrates the knowledge network that preserves the rules of art for organizational

functioning, preserving its existence, and provides the elements of judgment necessary for the

decision-making model, from which the processes are one way or another. The same knowledge

network provides information to maintain control over the unit of connective diversity and, at the

same time, lets us observe the variety needed so that both the decision-making model and the

processes can generate the variability that creates sustainability and viability to this relational

structure.

This relational structure will be connected, on the one hand, with all the other relational

units (VRS) and on the other, at the level of connective diversity, based on the related topology.
The formal representation of all this corresponds to the idea of a rhizome,(Deleuze & Guattari,

1980).

Let's see now how the VRS model is applied to the mining unit. The model below (Figure

Nº26) was developed from the experience of professionals with more than 30 years in the mining

business. This initial unit was designed to account for the mine concentrator transformation

processes. The mine business model model, states that; for the reduction of the variability of the

processes involved in its management, the decision-making model of the knowledge network (mine

management) must be made explicit, in order to make transparent the variety of states that are

involved and that account for the quality of the result. This allows not only the control of processes

but also the transparency of results for all the actors involved.

For this case, the reduction of waste (VNR), is achieved by eliminating all those

managements that do not contribute transformation, remaining as constitutive criteria of these

processes. Thus, environment, safety, quality, and maintenance become criteria for the

transformation of the scientific-technical unit. It is important to highlight that this idea is a result

that considers political, social, systemic criteria as well as financial-technical criteria

As indicated above, organizing mining from a systemic view implies conceiving it as a

network of relationships that exchanges variety and waste. The basic relational unit, within a

systemic conception of the business, is conceived as the network within a certain area and the

processes associated with it. It is a fact that each group or network of agents expresses a way of

making the decisions that must be carried out daily for the continuity of the processes. So then,

each network legitimizes a way of acting or doing with different tasks.

Within each unit, you can establish different amounts of steps or what we call variety, in

turn, this (necessary otherwise to meet the objectives of a process), produces a certain variability
and waste. Both variability and waste are conditions that must be controlled so as not to impede the

overall process.

If we have incorporated the concepts of variety and variety not required in the business

process, we could wonder naively. What is the business of copper mining under this perspective?

Generally, the production of fine copper will be answered and could continue to be answered.

However, under the

against rubbing or attrition in all that this means about the fixed assets and the operational

state of the transformation. Consequently, the spine is based on the quality of the fragmentation and

its composition when it reaches the concentrator. In other words, the business consists of the

control of the VNR that will reach the concentrator expressed as variability of the fragmentation of

the rock.

SYSTEMIC SKETCH FOR PROCESSES

From a systemic vision, a mining operation as a complex unit implies conceiving it as a

cultural system expressed in cooperative relationships, which are structured based on business

processes around the production of fine copper. The basic relational unit is constituted on the

relationship between a network and the associated productive process, which is expressed in the

form of decision making. In this way, a network legitimizes a way of doing, about a process, which

allows access to its variety, that is; the number of steps or distinguished states that make up the

process and its expression as variability or gap between the observed and expected results.

Contrary to the above, the design of the mining process is conceived linearly, this is a

sequence of processes whose linear relationship is established as inputs and outputs between one

and the other. When operated in this way, the emerging structure is a series of silos or black boxes

connected as "clients" of each other, leaving in the shadows what happens inside the black boxes.
When understood in this way, the control is only possible to be applied in the outputs of each silo

as variability, ignoring that the waste is generated in the variety inside the black box. For this

reason, the design of mine as a process is not systemic, but on the contrary; it is a sum of black

boxes that preach from the process they contain. The preceding results in the generation of

singularities that result in the loss of coordination and cohesion, affecting communication and

generating a high degree of waste in the management or variety not required (VNR). The latter is

defined as steps, relationships or states whose value is ≤ 0.

The production in VNR determines an increase in the variability of results, which, at the

same time, makes it necessary to increase control over it, generating unnecessary bureaucracy

without guaranteeing better results. A classic example of the above, are the relationships generated

by safety and environmental management which are not part of the operation as a process, but

control over it that does not ensure a different type of production.

Some of the signs that are generally found in companies whose structure is highly

hierarchical and, is configured in silos, are the following:

• Defective internal communication processes.

• Poor communication between the areas that are part of the same process,

• Lack of expressions of recognition and motivation of immediate superiors towards

collaborators.

• Rival relationships of the personnel in the teams.

• Lack of information from directives to collaborators.

• Lack of feedback or double-track channels where employees can resolve their doubts.
 Therefore, in the face of these signs, every kind of transformation must contemplate the

relational state of the organization, without it, the culture will phagocytose any process that wants

to produce a change for its resilience.

Starting from the systemic conception, as a relational unit, a mining operation can be

understood, from its decision-making processes, as a command management network connected to

other networks (management); these unions can be very robust or very weak depending on the

relationship between the agents that are connected. To eliminate the silos scheme, a common

exchange unit is necessary to account for the overall state of the business process. This unit is what

we previously called the non-required variety (VNR).

To operate a global process, we must contribute, as subprocesses, by decreasing the VNR

so that the variability of our results when exchanged generates the minimum amount of waste,

which translates into an increase in value.

On the other hand, an organizational design with relationships that allow the feedback of all

the processes involved is essential. About the above, we have generated an architecture that

involves 4 areas; the first one is related to the political-technical orientation of the business, the

second is the intelligence area, which carries within it the old areas, misnamed, of support. Unlike

classical vision, this area applies in front of the operation; therefore, it must ensure that the

production process has the necessary resources before they are requested, which is a way to reduce

the waste generated by the bureaucracy. The third area is scientific-technical which operates on the

transformation processes under the guidance of the political-technical area. To consolidate the flow

of permanent information, a fourth area was designed to ensure the flow of data, coordination, and

connectivity. To represent the base unit, we will use the VRS (Fig. 2), This unit has the condition to

replicate, depending on the strategic objective of the organization, to build network subsystems that
contribute to the organization from its relationship-process. The VRS system states that for the

reduction of the VNR of the constituent processes of management, the decision-making model of

the knowledge network must be made explicit to demonstrate the behavior of the variables that

account for the state of the connection. This allows not only the control of processes but also the

transparency of results for all the actors involved in the value chain. The VRS allows the

integration of the entire scientific-technical area from the co-control of variety, variety not required

and variability. Likewise, connective richness or connective diversity allows establishing the degree

of collaboration with other areas to control the variety of the process that generates value. As an

example, in the classic model, if a productive unit needed support from the administrative areas and

if this support was of low reciprocity, the effect diminished the value of the productive process. In

summary, relational systemic integration allows a dynamic and effective organization (Fig. 4).

Let's see now how the VRS model is applied to the mining unit. The model below (Fig. 5)

was developed from the experience of professionals with more than 30 years in the mining

business. This initial unit was designed to account for the mine concentrator transformation

processes. The mine business model, states that; for the reduction of the variability of the processes

involved in its management, the decision-making model of the knowledge network (mine

management) must be made explicit, to make transparent the variety of states that are involved and

that account for the quality of the result. This allows not only the control of processes but also the

transparency of results for all the actors involved.

For this case, the reduction of waste (VNR), is achieved by eliminating all those

managements that do not contribute transformation, remaining as constitutive criteria of these

processes. Thus, environment, safety, quality, and maintenance become criteria for the
transformation of the scientific-technical unit. It is important to highlight that this idea is a result

that considers political, social, systemic criteria as well as financial-technical criteria.

As indicated above, organizing mining from a systemic view implies conceiving it as a

network of relationships that exchanges variety and waste. The basic relational unit, within a

systemic conception of the business, is conceived as the network within a certain area and the

processes associated with it. It is a fact that each group or network of agents expresses a way of

making the decisions that must be carried out daily for the continuity of the processes. So then,

each network legitimizes a way of acting or doing to different tasks.

------------------------------

Insert Figure 4 about here

------------------------------

Within each unit, you can establish different amounts of steps or what we call variety, in

turn, this (necessary otherwise to meet the objectives of a process), produces a certain variability

and waste. Both variability and waste are conditions that must be controlled so as not to impede the

overall process.

If we have incorporated the concepts of variety and variety not required in the business

process, we could wonder naively. What is the business of copper mining under this perspective?

Generally, the production of fine copper will be answered and could continue to be answered.

However, under the incorporation of the variety and the VNR, the business, properly so and its

opportunities, is in the fight against rubbing or attrition in all that this means with the fixed assets

and the operational state of the transformation. Consequently, the spine is based on the quality of

the fragmentation and its composition when it reaches the concentrator. In other words, the
business consists of the control of the VNR that will reach the concentrator expressed as variability

of the fragmentation of the rock.

------------------------------

Insert Figure 5 about here

------------------------------

THE SOMMELIER MODEL

As the name says, the sommelier is the wine expert who suggests to the clientele the

appropriate wine for the occasion, in other words, it checks if the quality guidelines are met at the

beginning of the process. In the case of the mine, the idea is that our sommelier comes from the

concentrator and check if the mining plan has all the elements that ensure the quality downstream.

Is that; the status indicators (KPI), from the entrance to the mine, are associated with these

requirements. Concerning the above, it means that the processes are shared and their evaluation

also. Fig. 6 below shows the sommelier model.

As seen in the figure, the KPI lines work in feedback through the quality agreement

between plant-GRMD-primary crushing, on the other hand, the variability and VNR of the system

are controlled online through the network-process relationship.

The state indicators were conceptualized by the need to have input and output concepts

concerning VNR and variability. This means that to finally have a reliable indicator, it is necessary

to reach a consensus on them with the upstream areas and with the areas downstream of the mine.

Upwards and concerning the entrance of the mine, it is essential to reach a consensus on the

weight of the processes that make the state indicators and that depend on the management of

mining resources and development (GRMD). For our first results, provisionally, the mine personnel
pondered the weight with which each process contributes to the concretion of the indicator

(weighting of internal activities and from other processes).

Down and for the exit of the mine, the same scheme is proposed; it is necessary to reach a

consensus with the plant regarding which quality of entry is necessary to maintain (exit from the

mine). The weighting of internal activities and other processes has not been carried out yet. This

depends on the consensus achieved with the plant.

So then, the KPI can be explained taking into account the following:

1. Shared input indicator with processes of other responsible units (upstream)

2. Indicators of internal processes (own of the mine)

3. output indicators shared with the process needs that follow the mine (plant =

downstream).

In this way we have that the systemic strategy must implement the following actions:

1. Consolidate quality indicators for the management and action of the mining plan. Kpi and
relation with units upstream.
2. Consensus and consolidate quality indicators from the mine to the plant. Kpi and relation
with units and downstream.
3. Develop the integration of online data from a common desktop for all the software used in
the management of the mine.
4. Analyse the historical data and those produced by the data logger of the equipment to
generate a value tree of equipment and operators.
5. Establish systemic KPI in the supply area that allows us to weigh participation with
upstream and downstream customers
6. Review the procedures of the supply and services area, clean redundancy in procedures to
shorten deadlines and make efficient purchasing and service processes.
7. Generate quality agreements between all the units that are part of the business starting from
the GRMD.
 ------------------------------

Insert Figure 6 about here

------------------------------
 CONCLUSION
With the advent of information technologies and, with the process of infinite connectivity

that we are experiencing, we have accelerated the decision-making processes in a dizzying way, so

today we pay bills online, we communicate with other people through chat or mail, we read

messages from the pc to the cell phone, we can find an address using satellites, in short, we gain

time and a lot, however and paradoxically this gain in daily life is not reflected in the decision-

making processes associated with productivity in organizations, be they public or private. One

possible explanation lies in the fact that we have, on the one hand, inherited hierarchical structures,

which for what is needed today in speed are not capable of subsuming such demand. On the other

hand, when we produce we do not see that we do not see the production of waste and the lack of

cooperation within the lines of transformation. The somellier model was designed to solve these

two conditions, therefore, it is necessary to understand the shift to a structural change that allows

transition from a hierarchical to a heterarchical form to eliminate the work in silos. The heterarchy

is a system in which the members do not think about deciding on the other, but on interacting to

generate solutions. This way of participating, having greater freedom of action, can generate

multiple ideas, advice and help for a whole group to work coherently. "The heterarchies are

superimposed networks with individual components that simultaneously belong and act in multiple

networks and with the dynamics of the entire system that governs and emerges precisely from this

whole set of interactions." The hierarchy that is questioned is not the responsibility but the process,

one does not delegate responsibilities.

Based on those as mentioned earlier, to subsume the acceleration in the decision-making

processes by printing a change in speed from transiting from a hierarchical structure to a

heterarchical one constitutes the strategic horizon of any organization in general and the mining.
 En consecuencia, hablar de un producto que incorpore huellas o sellos: de carbono, de agua,

territorial, comunitaria, de derechos humanos, de seguridad en el trabajo, de igualdad de

oportunidades y ética, como es el cobre verde es no solo ilusorio, sino que impracticable bajo una

concepción no sistémica.

In this context, it is essential to constitute the knowledge-organization process as an art of

the relationship, that is, that they do not exist within the different types of concepts, limits or

borders. The knowledge is, finally, a recreating of practices and guidelines that achieve that the

ethical-aesthetic cohesion from the affective-effective. Organizing mining organizations, if a digital

transformation or an industrial revolution 4.0 is intended, is to allow the return to the initial world

of the game of creating mother and father, a relational game for new structures in the coordination

and communication of the networks that make up the operation, in another way, a ludic act without

borders. In short, it is an economy of the variety, control over the waste that remains in the shadows

when, in a self-complacent way, the tonnages of annual production are declared.

The mining of the 21st century must face and overcome the linearization of thought, which

is the genesis of the production of waste both tangible resources and in the loss of knowledge. The

control of the VNR is the promising way for a successful mining operation since it allows not only

a systemic communication, which destroys the disaggregated vision of the business but also

produces shared value by integrating all the actors that are part of the business. 
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