Having already taken out the Australia’s Mining Monthly award for best stand at the show, the construction machinery giant proceeded to pack out the admittedly small seminar area, reducing it to standing room only.
Speaking on the company’s global footprint across various industries, Hitachi Construction Machinery (Australia) general manager – mining Eric Green referenced FY 2014 results in outlining HCM’s 7% slice of the parent company’s make-up.
Commenting on the company’s place in the race towards autonomous haulage, Green said it would be worth the wait to see what Big Orange delivers.
“The [AHS] system is also very exciting as far as the latest development and technology that’s gone into these Hitachi trucks,” he said. 
“Although there’s autonomous haulage systems available from others, we believe that our advancement – even though we still haven’t got a system working in the mine sites as such – our advancements will pay dividends at the end.
“We are also involved with operator assist excavator development. HCA is again providing a structure to HCM to support this development.”
This increasing integration between Hitachi divisions was further addressed as Green gave up the stage to Hitachi’s vice-president metals and mining Gerhard van Niekerk.
Describing Hitachi’s growing global mining initiative, van Niekerk said the company aimed to draw expertise from every division and present it as one face to its clients.
“Our role is to extend our capability,” he said.
“We need to look at the complete value chain of our clients, we need to be able to service the business of mining – the business of running a mine or a mining corporation – and that is what Hitachi Global Mining is about.
“What Hitachi global mining is about is pulling together all those services, solutions and products across the Hitachi Limited organisation.
“We’re talking a thousand different companies. Pulling the relevant solutions and services and skills together to focus it on the mining client’s issues.
“That is a massive undertaking but with huge potential for our clients and for us as an organisation as well.”
Van Niekerk encouraged his co-exhibitors to visit the Hitachi stand, even if only to take advantage of its free gelato and coffee.