The Innovation Paradox: Why Great Mining Technologies Fail to Scale (And How to Fix It)

A 3-minute guide for CEOs, marketers, and business development leaders in mining innovation

Every mining conference showcases the same phenomenon: brilliant technologies that work perfectly in controlled environments but somehow never make it to widespread adoption. If you're leading innovation in mining, you've probably experienced this frustration firsthand.

Tim Vorage, co-founder of 10-Ops and former chemical engineer turned innovation strategist, has spent two decades studying why some mining technologies scale while others stagnate. His insights reveal a uncomfortable truth: the problem isn't your technology—it's your approach to scaling it.

The Proof-of-Concept Graveyard

"A lot of companies are good at creating proof of concepts," Vorage explains. "If you have 10 or 20, that is nice. But it's not moving the needle for the company...it only happens when you scale . . . that is where the impact happens."

This hits at the heart of mining innovation's biggest challenge. Companies celebrate successful pilots, but in the real world their core business remains unchanged! The real impact happens during scaling—the messy, complex process of taking a working solution and implementing it across operations, cultures, and markets.

The Resource Allocation Trap

Vorage's research into dozens of public companies revealed a counterintuitive pattern: companies that spread resources across 20+ opportunities typically underperform those that focus intensively on their top 3-5 prospects.

"Companies that think they de-risk by betting on 20 opportunities are typically the ones that stay relatively mediocre in their results," he notes. "The ones that select the right opportunities and do resource allocation on the top three or top five, those are the ones that seem to win."

For mining innovation leaders, this means making harder choices upfront rather than hedging bets across multiple projects.

The "Evil Twin" Reality Check

Before scaling anythng, Vorage's team puts innovations through what they call the "Evil Twin" workshop — a systematic challenge of assumptions that most innovators would rather avoid.

The process asks uncomfortable questions:

• Are you solving a real problem (and is it the right problem to solve?)

• How would competitors approach this differently?

• What's the real evidence that customers will adopt this at scale?

• 
  

"People [innovators] are very proud of what they do, what they have invented, what they have created, so they can become defensive," Vorage acknowledges. "Our job is to give an outside-in perspective... the inconvenient truth."

The Digital Twin Advantage

Perhaps most intriguingly, 10-Ops uses AI-powered "digital twins" to model entire companies and predict which opportunities will create real value. Their system achieves 80-85% accuracy in identifying viable business opportunities—remarkable precision in an industry where most innovations fail.

This approach moves beyond gut feelings and PowerPoint presentations to evidence-based opportunity assessment, helping companies focus resources where they'll generate actual returns.

Practical Steps for Mining Innovation Leaders

Based on Vorage's framework, here's how to increase your chances of scaling success:

1. Challenge First, Scale Second Before investing in scaling, put your innovation through rigorous outside-in analysis. What real mining problems does it actually solve? How do mines currently address these challenges? (By the way, outside-in means customer centric - often aided by outsiders!)

2. Narrow Your Focus Resist the temptation to pursue every opportunity. Identify your top innovation prospects and allocate your top resources accordingly. "Spray and pray" innovation is neither effective nor productive.

3. Design for Scale from Day One When creating proof-of-concepts, ensure they're representative of what scaling would actually require, not just what works in ideal conditions. Ideally, work with a rigorous launch process that develops both technical and market readiness levels formally.

4. Embrace the Inconvenient Truth Create space for honest feedback about your innovation's limitations. Better to discover problems during development than after market launch. Establish an Innovation Advisory Panel comprised of current customers, industry specialists and technology leaders you trust - you will thank yourself forever!

The Bottom Line

The mining industry needs breakthrough technologies to address safety, productivity, and environmental challenges. But having great technology isn't enough—scaling it effectively separates industry leaders from also-rans.

As Vorage puts it: "A proof of concept is great, but in the end, you are doing this to really make an impact. That journey to make an impact is as important and also as difficult and challenging as creating the MVP."

The companies that master this journey—from proof-of-concept to scaled impact—will define the future of mining innovation.

Want to dive deeper? Listen to the full conversation with Tim Vorage on the MineWarp Podcast

For trusted advice on launch processes and customer-centric go-to-market strategies, contact me at empie.strydom@minewarp.com