Hexagon CEO and president Ola Rollén has outlined the company and its global brand network’s vision for the future of mining and construction machine control. Speaking during a Hexagon media luncheon Q&A during the four-day HxGN Live 2014 conference being staged at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Rollén emphasised the strength of Hexagon’s Mining Division which currently consists of Leica Geosystems surveying equipment; SAFEmine mine safety and collision avoidance systems; Devex and Leica Geosystems Minin
Speaking during a Hexagon media luncheon Q&A during the four-day HxGN Live 2014 conference being staged at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Rollén emphasised the strength of Hexagon’s Mining Division which currently consists of
He said, “We’ve sold surveying equipment into the mining industry and been very successful at doing that. Then we introduced fleet management which is a natural extension if you’ve got GPS. Now finally we’re realising that there is a need to tie back the information that you collect from the vehicles and survey equipment into your planning software, that’s why MineSight comes into the picture. This is definitely something we’re going to see more of. We’ve launched Smart Agriculture and we’ve launched Smart Mining here, and that is the way forward for Hexagon.
“Why mining makes sense right now is because mining is going through a trough. We’re not about volume. We are about making clever buys, improving productivity and cost. This is what the mining industry is looking for right now. They are looking for a solution to reduce production costs and so on and maintaining their profitability. That’s what Hexagon Mining is about.”
Highlighting the importance of SAFEmine safety and collision avoidance systems, Rollén said, “We’re going to see integration of SAFEmine into machine control. What it’s doing is reading the driver’s face, for example, to detect fatigue and warn the driver. We also have collision avoidance systems and I think that’s something that’s going to be integrated into all machine control products [including construction and agriculture] that we have.”
Of other machine control trends, he added, “It’s about getting more connected. We have GeoMedia [by Intergraph] and SmartPlant 3D - a CAD product and a geospatial product. They are working their way into the general construction markets, which are large markets. To be able to connect machine control with those two software products and update progress on construction sites, that’s going to be exciting. I think we’re going to see a lot of software systems connected to machine control.”
The ambition of the Hexagon Group has been apparent in a large number of acquisitions it has made in the past year, including its recent purchases of Mintec and SAFEmine. Hexagon achieved sales of €2.3 billion in 2013, and has previously publicised how it is looking to achieve sales of €3.5 billion and to improve EBIT margin from 20% to 25% before the end of 2015.
Of Hexagon’s acquisition strategy, Rollén said, “We just calculated that we have bought on average 3.75 companies a quarter [over the past year], so I think you can expect us to continue doing that.”
Turning to Hexagon’s R&D strategy, Rollén said that it was focused on making new solutions “future enabled”, so they would be compatible with subsequent products that the firm brings onto the market.
Built around the theme of ‘Great Stories Start Here’, the HxGN Live 2014 conference (June 2-5) illustrated the breadth of Hexagon’s global brand network. Focused on helping customers harness the power of Hexagon technologies, HxGN Live 2014 also acted as a forum for customers and partners to access the latest trends in design, measurement and visualisation technologies. It also saw ideas exchanged and solutions explored for creating a better, smarter world that can meet the earth’s big challenges such as urbanisation and environmental degradation, two themes highlighted during Rollén’s keynote speech which opened the event.
