GISCafé industry predictions 2023 – Maptek

By Eduardo Coloma, CEO, Maptek

Eduardo Coloma

Every company feels the pull to become a data company. The cloud is now accepted as the modern foundation for managing data, promising unlimited data storage space. However, increasingly larger datasets collected from multiple sensors and systems bring novel challenges for effective and efficient value extraction. Complexity also increases with multiple providers offering proprietary data formats. Everyone is claiming a best-of-breed solution, leaving end-users wallowing in an information mire, without a clear strategy for decision support.

Maptek has developed various strategies to answer the need to harness both data and data management. GeoSpatial Manager offers smart visualization tools combined with a simple web interface to deliver a single source of truth for managing as-built surfaces across an organization. Dynamic updates to surveyed surfaces allow users to manage, visualize and download any as-built surface at any point in time over the life of a project and apply it to downstream tasks. Opportunities then arise to automate workflows involving surface data and improve cross-team collaboration and inter-team communication.

Many organizations are developing use cases for data analytics and machine learning that will deliver significant business outcomes. Computing frameworks such as Maptek DomainMCF combine cloud computing power and machine learning to deliver resource and grade trend models 2000 times faster than traditional methods. Speedy turnaround on modeling scenarios releases professional staff for in depth analysis and investment reporting. In this way the power of technology augments the power of the user.

Open standard file formats that incentivize interoperability continue to be one of the top requirements for future data architecture strategies. The use of APIs to communicate between different applications will empower industry professionals to access the best tools for the job, with a single data ecosystem providing the best pathway to automation.

The rising adoption of 3D technologies will continue to leverage advances in automation, mobile and wearable devices and artificial intelligence. This enables broader scope for applications and faster, easier and more reliable transition into 3D.

Maptek’s role in helping miners meet their goals still focuses on getting the most out of their data. Technology companies like Maptek have built on a foundation of in-house development of ground-breaking mining software systems, and now use their expertise to test and prove the applicability of algorithms from outside the mining industry, adding value to the benefit of customers.

Electrification of upstream and downstream systems, efficiency improvements, sustainable fuels and eliminating direct emissions are some industrial high-level goals around achieving Net Zero targets.

Mining is not just about tonnes and grades at the face; miners also need to identify efficiencies in energy and water consumption during processing. Maptek is already working on projects around ways to consider energy and water consumption variables as part of evaluating strategic mine scheduling scenarios.

New opportunities exist for haul road design and the allocation, scheduling and optimization of trucks to minimize downtime for battery swap out or recharging. Strategies around backfilling can play out differently running an electric fleet because of the gravitational potential recharge involved in moving mass downhill. Underground operations present different scenarios where it may make more sense to haul ore down (rather than drop down a pass) with the associated opportunities for energy recharge.

Fleet dispatch algorithms – such as fueling optimization logic – are potentially more complex under electrification, and have different cost ramifications, which need to be well understood. Opportunities exist hubbing off strong demand for material tracking and operations management software systems to model energy consumption and look for alternative route optimization.

The ability to measure the environmental impact of a mining schedule is extremely important. Maptek and Minviro combined technologies and expertise to predict the footprint of a mining project as it develops, while simultaneously optimizing the mining schedule for material movement through life cycle analysis.

It is clear that industry, governments and academia need to work together to ensure future success and with aligned purpose we can continually strengthen community trust in the resources and geospatial sectors.

Developing a strategy to improve the application of key geological, environmental and heritage datasets is an important part of our industry’s future. We also need to pay attention to prioritizing long term R&D efforts – including in environmental management, geoscience, exploration, innovation, technology and critical minerals.

Accurate and timely data to guide mining is balanced by the requirement to transform data into knowledge for decision making, shortening the time from data collection to value creation.

Last but by no means least, we must pay more attention to the key element in mining – the people. This starts with education. We must continue to incentivise new generations to be part of this fantastic industry. Yes, there is plenty of negative sentiment about the effect of mining on the environment – we must work with this rather than against it, to ensure best practice ESG.

As AI and new technologies emerge, we must invest in the benefits of labour-saving opportunities without discarding the experience, intuition and imagination of the people who choose to work in the mining sphere. Wise change management is critical to ensuring that a win-win situation is achieved – people retain jobs, but those jobs are different, more fulfilling and less wasteful of potential.

About Author

Mining Engineer Eduardo Coloma has more than 20 years of experience in technical mining and managerial roles, both in South America and Australia. He currently serves as global CEO of the mining innovation company Maptek, which is headquartered in Australia.

Category: Industry Predictions

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 17th, 2023 at 1:07 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.