A leading phosphate producer saw reviving a mine as a lost cause, but Minitab’s statistical software helped shine a new light.
In the phosphate-rich fields of Florida, the Wingate Creek mine was on borrowed time.
Once shuttered and long considered an underperformer, the site was reopened by Mosaic Corporation, the world’s leading phosphate and potash nutrients producer.
However, with a rock recovery rate of 47 per cent – well below the industry standard of 85–90 per cent – its future was anything but secure.
Expectations were modest when Mosaic reopened Wingate Creek, as even the most optimistic managers hoped for a minimal increase in recovery.
“Managers hoped for a two or three per cent increase in recovery rates,” Joe Gliksman, black belt of data-driven process improvement methodology Six Sigma, said.
“They told us that sustained 70 per cent recoveries at this mine would be a miracle.”
But Gliksman and fellow Six Sigma black belt John Whitley were undeterred. The pair were armed with deep expertise in process improvement and Minitab’s Statistical Software.
Gliksman and Whitley led a project that eventually lifted recovery rates to over 80 per cent and delivered $12 million in annual financial benefits.
Mosaic had invested heavily in Lean Six Sigma, which combines Lean and Six Sigma principles to improve business processes, since its formation.
By the end of the project, over 45 quality improvement teams were working across the company, involving more than 500 employees and delivering millions in added value. Despite these numbers, Wingate Creek was still viewed as a lost cause.
Assembling a cross-functional team comprising engineers, mechanics, plant operators, lab technicians, supervisors, and even reagent suppliers, Gliksman and Whitley studied Wingate Creek’s operation data using Minitab’s capability analysis – a tool that shows how well a process is performing, and how far it has to go.
The results confirmed what everyone suspected: the mine was falling short of conservative targets.
With the situation laid bare, the team conducted process mapping and a thorough cause-and-effect analysis to pinpoint the weakest links in the beneficiation chain, which involved separating phosphate from ore.
It turned to Minitab’s design of experiments feature, which allowed Gliksman and Whitley’s team to test several process changes simultaneously and quickly identify which adjustments – including changing reagent mixes, tweaking slurry densities, or altering screen settings – were having the biggest impact on recovery.
The real-time insights enabled the team to implement changes almost immediately. And the results came just as swiftly. The mine’s phosphate rock recovery had surged from 47 to over 68 per cent within 30 days.
To ensure these improvements were accurate and sustainable, the team continued to rely on Minitab’s broad toolset.
Gage R&R (repeatability and reproducibility) studies confirmed the measurement systems were reliable, variance tests validated the impact of their changes, and control charts helped monitor the process moving forward.
By the end of the project, the numbers were hard to ignore: $8 million in increased phosphate production, $4 million in reagent cost savings and a total $12 million boost to Mosaic’s bottom line.
And to top it off, recovery rates at Wingate Creek have since climbed to more than 80 per cent.
But the financial gains only tell part of the story, as the cultural transformation that took place at Wingate Creek was just as profound.
Workers at every level began to see how their decisions and actions fed directly into the mine’s performance.
What was once seen as a failing asset was now a shining example of just what’s possible when data meets determination.
Others took notice, with the team’s project awarded the Process Excellence Award from the International Quality and Productivity Council, cementing Minitab’s role as an essential tool in Mosaic’s operational toolkit.
For all mining operations, the lesson is clear: the right tools can unlock value that’s been buried for years.
This feature appeared in the August 2025 issue of Australian Mining.
