Hillhead 2018 exhibitors and attendees were met with torrential rain two years ago that filled parts of the former Tarmac quarry like a swimming pool.
As one exhibitor recalls, you could practically canoe through the aisles.
The rain fortunately stayed away from this summer’s Hillhead, but those who took part in the trade show were met with another extreme weather event: excessive heat.
According to multiple reports, the United Kingdom experienced its greatest heat wave in about 40 years around the time of the show. The intense temperatures made the venture around Hillhead a bit challenging, but the 20,000 people who made the trip to Buxton, England, went home with some new ideas to spruce up their operations.
One forward-thinking concept seen at Hillhead was an element of CDE’s new Core smart technology suite. Core 3D is one of three elements of CDE Core, providing users a 3-D parts catalog that’s unique to their plant. Core 3D gives users the ability to see 3-D visualizations of their plant. As CDE’s Alan McKnight describes, the technology simplifies parts ordering by allowing users to zero in on the component needed within a 3-D rendering.
The 3-D visualization allows users to view every layer of their plant and the components within each layer. Users can even utilize Core 3D in the field by taking a tablet onto their plant, where they can compare actual parts to ones they see in the 3-D visualization.
Producers and contractors have probably misordered parts on occasion. Perhaps a message about a required part got lost in translation to a manufacturer or dealer, or the person diagnosing a part failure gathered the wrong information from the start. The Core 3D component of CDE Core is designed to better connect material producers with their equipment supplier and weed out any obstacles between the two.
Telematics is everywhere
A walk through Hillhead also served as reminder that manufacturers of turnkey aggregate processing plants continue to develop tools that give producers greater control over their plants.
CDE Core, which also includes a system to simplify and monitor operator activity and a real-time health tracker for plants, is one such example. Another is the My Fleet system that Sandvik Mining & Rock Technology unveiled at the show.
Sandvik developed My Fleet to give customers a better understanding of how equipment is being utilized. Like a number of systems out there, My Fleet provides remote access to data regarding location and machine utilization. It was also developed to help users plan their service and maintenance and, ultimately, help them work more efficiently and cost effectively.
That turnkey plant manufacturers continue to launch such systems speaks to both the demand for telematics among producers and the realization among manufacturers that having such solutions is necessary to effectively compete.
Check out some videos from the show. Click on the icon in the top left hand corner to choose the video you’d like to watch.