Hexagon Mining President, Hélio Samora demos the virtual mine plan in the Virtual Reality Wall at HxGN LIVE.
There’s something fitting about a conference devoted to potential, hosted by a hotel in the desert that features a lobby resembling the Sistine Chapel and a canal on its second floor. The Venetian in Las Vegas can be a tricky place to navigate, with its Italian plazas, gondolas, pools, pubs, clubs, restaurants, and spa. But you can’t help marveling at the scale of its ambition. More than 3,000 attendees were left feeling the same way after listening to Limitless, Hexagon President and CEO, Ola Rollén’s enthralling keynote at HxGN LIVE this week.
That feeling stayed with me Tuesday morning as I watched Shaping the Digital Mine, Hexagon Mining’s keynote, delivered by President, Hélio Samora. As Mining’s communications director, I had a vested interest in attending. My job touches upon all aspects of Mining’s solutions, but it’s at conferences like this that all of us see the bigger picture of what we’re trying to achieve for our customers.
The central tenet of Hélio’s 45-minute presentation was simple: partial solutions don’t cut it anymore. A digital strategy is essential for any mine seeking a competitive edge; and no other company is better positioned to help companies achieve that edge than Hexagon Mining. In a multimedia display, attendees saw first-hand how the company is integrating solutions for planning, operations, safety, automation, survey and monitoring into one solid, IoT-enabled digital platform.
“By connecting the blocks of a digital mine, we bring the digital world closer to the real world,” said Hélio.
For anyone wondering what that platform looks like, Mining’s island in The Zone delivered. Not surprisingly, crowds were drawn to our Virtual Reality Wall, and the chance to walk through and interact with a virtual mine plan via the HTC Vive. There were demos of GeoLogic, our new intuitive geological workflow tool for reproducible and auditable geological modeling. Safety was well represented with the industry’s first vehicle intervention system, HxGN Mine VIS – released this week! Another step on our human assist roadmap was in evidence with reverse guidance system, accessible via simulator.
Our mobile solution, used by some of the biggest mines in the world and focused on production management and fleet management, was a big draw for attendees. So, too, were our slope monitoring solutions from IDS and real-time water quality monitoring with Leica GeoMos.
Numerous technical sessions presented by clients and Mining staff provided solid evidence of the results already being delivered by this digital platform.
Post-event, I’m left with one regret: I finally figured out my way around The Venetian the day I had to leave.
Neville Judd
Communications Director
Neville Judd is the Communications Director of Hexagon Mining. He was a newspaper journalist for 20 years before being hired in 2010 with a definitive brief: Make mining technology sound sexy. Hexagon Mining is the only company to solve surface and underground challenges by integrating design, planning, and operations technologies for safer, more productive mines. Who wouldn’t find that sexy?