Hitachi and Wenco International Mining Systems, a Canadian subsidiary of Hitachi Construction Machinery, have announced the beginning of a joint Proof of Concept (PoC) project. The PoC project, initiated by Hitachi and Wenco, and facilitated by Teck, “will combine Hitachi’s highly reliable cloud service and Wenco’s Fleet Management System (FMS) with Teck’s mining operation team to demonstrate how much the efficiency of the system will be improved.” The results of the project is being evaluated for approximately 40 days from the launch date on January 20.

In this PoC project, Wenco’s FMS will be installed at Hitachi’s data centre in North America, and will provide cloud-based FMS service to Teck via the internet. Teck will support the project and provide feedback on the performance and efficiency of the system within one of its facilities located in British Columbia, Canada. “Wenco is very excited about the associated benefits our industry partners can leverage with the combination of fleet management and cloud computing. Minimising learning curves on hardware and software, expanding accessibility, and reducing capital costs will increase system longevity and effectiveness for our clients,” said Phil Walshe, President and CEO, Wenco.

Using on-board computers, the Wenco FMS is installed on dump trucks, excavators and additional equipment. It displays mine-specific instructions for the operators that help increase efficiencies at a mine site. Currently, the FMS is individually maintained and operated on each mine site, but the cloud-based FMS service utilised in the PoC project will demonstrate the ability for mines with multiple sites to manage their mine sites from one facility. The goal of the project is to reduce the initial start-up and operating costs of the FMS in small-scale mining.

Hitachi and Wenco will work together toward the success of the PoC project and its future full-scale application in other mines. Hitachi has positioned the mining-related area as one of the core focus areas of the Social Innovation Business, and will accelerate the global rollout of these business activities. Also Hitachi has organised its smart information related products and services into “Intelligent Operations.” After analysing and evaluating the results of the project, Hitachi will advance the development of an Intelligent Operations for Mining solution as a part of its Intelligent Operations.

“The PoC project that Hitachi and Wenco are starting with Teck is a new chapter in the history of resources development. We will work through this PoC project to promote efficiency of resources development by improving efficiency of the equipment with our advanced IT by the whole Hitachi Group,” said Keiichi Shiotsuka, Vice President and Executive Officer, Chief Executive Officer of Services Business, Information and Telecommunication Systems Company, Hitachi Ltd.