Creating value for your business through automation and orchestration

Maptek Global Strategy Manager James Mackenzie explains the core concept behind Maptek Vestrex and outlines how it encourages stakeholders across roles, teams and businesses to collaborate and streamline decision making that unlocks value.

Q: What is the core concept behind Maptek Vestrex? 

A: Vestrex is designed to revolutionise businesses by integrating data, cloud computing and orchestration. It’s all about enabling seamless collaboration and unlocking innovative data applications across various processes and stakeholders. 

Essentially, Vestrex helps businesses such as miners, with complex, interoperable systems, to transform data into actionable insights, improve efficiency, and ultimately, drive better outcomes.

Q: What are the key components that make up the Vestrex ecosystem?

A: Vestrex is built upon three fundamental pillars: Data Services, Compute Framework and Orchestration. The Data Services pillar, anchored by the MDS (Maptek Data System), acts as the central integration hub. It ingests data from any source through open APIs and manages data and publishing permissions. 

The MCF (Maptek Compute Framework) powers machine learning and optimisation within our existing mining and geospatial solutions, enabling rapid calculations on scalable resources. 

Finally, the MOE (Maptek Orchestration Environment) is where the real revolution happens. It connects algorithms, executables and transformations, leveraging computational power and scalability across business and technical systems.

Q: How does Vestrex improve collaboration among different stakeholders in a mining operation?

A: Collaboration is at the heart of Vestrex. By centralising data in the cloud and making it accessible to all stakeholders, we break down silos and encourage teams to work together more effectively. 

Stakeholders across different roles, teams and even businesses can access and utilise technical data beyond traditional applications. 

Think about how valuable it would be to bring operations, plant, finance and logistics systems into the decision-making process around mine scheduling, especially when you can quickly generate multiple scenarios for consideration without the overhead of unnecessary cross-team meetings. 

This cross-discipline approach fosters the discovery of new and unexpected use cases, limited really only by your imagination. Being able to incorporate human-in-the-loop decision points within automated processes ensures that expertise and judgement remain an integral part of the workflow. Management can be confident that the data being generated and reported has been subject to the typical risk analysis and quality checks.

Q: What are the primary benefits of automation and orchestration within Vestrex?

A: Automation streamlines operations through harnessing real-time data, and integrating processes and systems. The decision-making process becomes much faster as a result. 

Orchestration builds on this by employing high-performance computing and application workflows to unlock even greater value from technical data, operational processes and business systems. 

By binding data and computations, Vestrex creates automations that streamline processes and data pipelines, integrating them seamlessly within broader operational workflows. This reduces manual intervention, minimises human error and frees up valuable time and resources.

Q: What is an example of Vestrex in action?

A: Imagine a scenario where real-time drilling data captured from downhole sensors needs to be integrated into the void modelling process. This measurement-while-drilling data provides valuable information for continuous monitoring and analysis of drilling parameters. Data from various sources, including drilling systems, is imported into MDS. This triggers an automatic transformation of the data into a format that the Maptek DomainMCF machine learning engine can use to model geological domain boundaries. 

The DomainMCF model is then converted into a customer-defined format, such as GeoTiFF, and sent to the customer’s data lake. Finally, the GeoTiFF files are automatically converted into polygons and pushed into Vulcan or GeologyCore, or indeed any modelling and mine planning software, for incorporation into the void modelling process. 

All of these steps are automated, requiring no manual intervention once the initial setup is complete.

Q: What about data security? How does Vestrex ensure that sensitive information is protected?

A: Data security is paramount for any business. Vestrex enables effortless data transfer across cloud and desktop environments, with secure data access and management from a centralised platform. We employ robust security measures, including encryption and backup protocols, to protect sensitive information and ensure operational continuity.

Q: How does Vestrex help businesses manage pressure to increase productivity with a shrinking workforce?

A: Significant impacts are being felt by mining and allied industries. These include diminishing resources; social, environmental, governmental and regulatory conditions; human workforce and skills shortages; and robotics and AI. 

One of the most significant risks in the next 5to 10 years is the growing skills gap and a declining interest in mining careers. This will push the industry to find ways to capture and retain knowledge while identifying processes that can be automated. Keeping skilled personnel invested in their jobs is just as critical as making full use of every data point and embedding automation. 

Artificial intelligence is all very well, but it needs to be moderated by human intelligence, not necessarily because humans are ‘smarter’ but because someone has to specify what is required of the output, whether it makes intuitive sense etc. The downfall in human systems is that they can be self-referential, resulting in subjective decision making. The beauty of Vestrex is that it allows for human involvement within orchestration and automation regimes.

Q: How do you sum up the customer ue proposition of Vestrex?

A: We’ve defined several key areas where Vestrex delivers value to our customers. First, it enables access to applications and data from anywhere, allowing secure access to web applications, files and data from any device with an internet connection. 

Second, it allows businesses to scale resources on demand, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficient use of licences and cloud computing time. 

Third, it improves data security and disaster recovery through robust security measures, data encryption and backup protocols. 

Fourth, it reduces IT infrastructure costs by eliminating the need for on-premise servers and moving costs from CAPEX to OPEX budgets. This supports our customers who increasingly need to operate in a more agile manner to take advantage of commodity and investment conditions.

Fifth, it enables automation, streamlining operations by minimising manual intervention and accelerating tasks. This is critical to match the anticipated needs and skills of the workforce of the future.

Finally, it unleashes innovation by enabling the discovery of new and unexpected use cases to generate value.

Q: Is Vestrex only for mining businesses?

A: While the core market for Maptek technology solutions is global miners, the Vestrex ecosystem can generate value for all businesses. Fostering integration of data through open APIs, and invoking native and third-party processes and systems regardless of format or type, makes it a good fit for any company looking to automate and orchestrate workflows to streamline decision making. 

Maptek customers will experience an added advantage of native integration between their desktop licences and cloud solutions.

Q: How can businesses get started with Vestrex?

A: An early access program is already underway globally and we encourage potential customers to contact Maptek to find out how Vestrex can revolutionise their business. We’re excited to help our customers explore the possibilities and help them unlock the full potential of their data.