{"slug":"mining-less-waste-and-more-value-with-ai-driven-insights","url":"https://findausecase.com/use-cases/mining-less-waste-and-more-value-with-ai-driven-insights","title":"Mining less waste and more value with AI-driven insights","description":"Nexa Resources built a unified Databricks Data + AI Platform with Unity Catalog governance, deploying predictive models for zinc filtration and cadmium removal and AI agents integrating GPT-4 and Llama 3.1 for contract analysis and a digital library assistant, generating $370,000 in combined annual savings and cutting IT supplier contract analysis time by 800%.","company":"Nexa Resources","industry":"Manufacturing","aiCapabilities":["Predictive Analytics","Agentic AI","Generative AI"],"businessFunctions":["Legal & Compliance"],"technology":["Databricks","Agent Bricks","Databricks SQL","Delta Lake","Unity Catalog"],"deployment":"Unknown","problemStatement":"Nexa faced significant challenges with its legacy data architecture and centralized operational model. Data and AI expertise were confined to the IT team, creating bottlenecks for innovation and restricting business units' ability to independently leverage data for decision-making.","solutionApproach":"Nexa implemented Delta Lake with a medallion architecture, SQL Serverless workflows to automate pipelines, and Unity Catalog for centralized access management, data lineage and compliance, then used MLflow to streamline the ML lifecycle and integrated pretrained models like GPT-4 and Llama 3.1 to build custom AI agents, including an IT supplier contract analysis tool and a digital library agent for natural language search.","businessValue":"Predictive models for zinc filtration and cadmium removal generated combined annual savings of $370,000, the AI-powered IT supplier contract analysis tool reduced processing time by 800%, and an ingestion framework reduced development cycles by 300%.","evidence":{"band":"high"},"sourceUrl":"https://www.databricks.com/customers/nexa","dates":{"publishedAt":"2026-09-08T09:03:51.554Z","publishedAtSource":"pipeline","updatedAt":"2026-09-08T09:03:51.554Z"},"license":"Open for reading and citing with a link to https://findausecase.com/use-cases/mining-less-waste-and-more-value-with-ai-driven-insights. Bulk republication requires permission."}