Thursday, December 9th, 2010
Anticipation was high as the 70 attendees from Chile, Argentina, Perú and Brazil gathered for the Maptek users conference in Viña del Mar in November.
The conference opened with a video of news footage and interviews with Maptek technical staff Alvaro Quezada, Sandra Jara and Estíbaliz Echevarría who participated in the San José rescue operation in Copiapó, Chile.
Maptek’s V-P of South America Marcelo Arancibia, Chairman Bob Johnson and CEO Barry Henderson presented plaques to these staff and colleagues from other companies who all worked together in the rescue operation. They were thanked warmly for their commitment to what was a very difficult task.
This led into the opening address by Felipe Matthews, Operations Manager of Geoatacama, who outlined the process of measuring the drillhole deviation to ensure the target location was reached.
Felipe then joined Eduardo Hurtado from Terra Services Drilling and Walter Véliz from BHP Billiton’s Escondida, who coordinated the Plan B rescue effort, on a panel to answer questions. Conference attendees appreciated their generosity in sharing their insights, including some of the challenges they faced and overcame.
The remaining technical sessions covered user applications of Vulcan tools, such as short term planning, grade control, block modelling and conditional simulation. Maptek product demonstrations included the I-Site 8800 laser scanner, features to come in Vulcan 8.1 and a preview of new products scheduled for release in 2011.
Participants expressed strong interest in Vulcan’s short term scheduling application, saying they could implement it at their sites for immediate workflow benefits.
‘The best thing about meeting with customers in this environment is that we can exchange ideas and practices in a very frank and open manner. They can see how we operate and we can learn from them how our products fit with their daily work,’ said Marcelo Arancibia.
‘Forging strong customer ties is very important to Maptek, and it was never closer to our hearts than after we had worked side by side for the successful outcome at San José,’ he concluded.