Speaking during Cliffs' first-quarter earnings call, Lourenco Goncalves said the plan is to embed AI capabilities into the interface between commercial and production, particularly production planning and order entry processes.

“Our people are good, but it's impossible to perfect these processes with humans running Excel spreadsheets,” Goncalves said. “This initiative will ultimately move us from human experience-driven planning toward a new and enhanced AI-assisted decision-making system that scales with the complexity of our operations.”

Goncalves said the company plans to detail the partnership in a full announcement in the next few weeks.
On another front, Goncalves said global uncertainty is prompting aluminum users to reconsider their materials choices.

“In my long career in this business, I have never seen so much momentum in substituting aluminum with steel,” Goncalves said. “The aluminum industry has been hit repeatedly (with) fires, power shortages, curtailments and geopolitical disruption, and customers have taken notice of all that. Automotive OEMs are prioritizing supply certainty, total cost and safety,” he said.

But, he added, it’s not only automotive consumers that are rethinking aluminum.

“Building products, appliances and truck and trailer sectors have been recently gravitating toward more steel use as well,” he said.

Cliffs last year announced a successful trial in which an automotive OEM stamped defect-free steel parts using equipment originally designed for aluminum.