Wenco looks to enhance job-site safety with SmartCap acquisition
Hitachi-owned Wenco International Mining Systems to help further develop SmartCap’s fatigue monitoring wearable device for industries such as mining
Wenco International Mining Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi Construction Machinery, has announced the purchase of SmartCap Technologies Pty Ltd, makers of fatigue monitoring wearables used in the mining, trucking and other industries.
The Vancouver-, Canada based Wenco said it has purchased all assets and intellectual property of SmartCap, and added that “this purchase is an important step for the continued growth of the SmartCap fatigue technology”.
Based in Brisbane, Australia, SmartCap assesses real-time fatigue levels and monitors for oncoming microsleeps that create safety hazards. The SmartCap device has over 5,000 users globally in various sectors.
Tim Ekert, CEO, SmartCap said: “We have made significant progress these past eight years and we are proud of every safety incident our technology has prevented. We believe joining Wenco will enable us to grow even further and increase the safety of even more industrial operations.”
According to Wenco, the acquisition adds a strategic, fatigue monitoring capability to its safety solution portfolio. Safety is of paramount importance at mines and other industrial sites, where operators must perform long hours of repetitive work while paying close attention to their surrounding environment. SmartCap greatly enhances the ability of operators and other workers in proximity to the equipment to remain safe.
“Wenco has long been observing SmartCap’s success in enhancing safety for their customers, and we have been in regular discussion on how we can integrate our technologies to provide a comprehensive, next-generation safety solution,” said Andrew Pyne, president and CEO, Wenco.
“Ultimately, it was decided that bringing our technology, personnel, and business relationships together under Wenco offered the greatest opportunity for us to deliver on our mutual vision for mine safety.”
In recent years, Wenco and its parent, Hitachi Construction Machinery (HCM), have invested heavily in solutions to streamline and optimise the end-to-end mining enterprise, with safety as a foundation. Wenco added that SmartCap adds an advanced, fatigue monitoring layer for operator protection to this digital mining initiative. It is intended to be included as part of HCM’s Solution Linkage® family, the ICT/IoT solution platform for global mining and construction customers created in response to increased demands for improved safety, life cycle cost, and productivity.
