Wenco International Mining Systems Ltd. (“Wenco”) today announced its acquisition of SmartCap Technologies Pvt. Ltd, who are the makers of world’s latest fatigue monitoring wearables.
Based in Brisbane (Australia), SmartCap assesses real-time fatigue levels and monitors oncoming microsleeps that may create safety hazards. The SmartCap device has over 5,000 users globally across mining, trucking, and other industries.
“This purchase is an important step for the continued growth of the SmartCap fatigue technology,” says SmartCap CEO Tim Ekert.
“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,” he adds.
This acquisition adds a strategic, fatigue monitoring capability to Wenco’s 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,” says Andrew Pyne, president and CEO of 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 optimize the end-to-end mining enterprise, with safety as a foundation. 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.
