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Comprehensive Supply Chain Solutions

Donning the HardHat

t was a no-brainer that Tim Smith, chief ple to be really better informed through
Iexecutive of software outfit, HardHat, the availability of dashboards that provide
attended Diggers & Dealers this year. alerts to any issues within the business is
“Having everyone in one place al- what people are liking,” Smith said.
lowed us to talk to and hear what the in- “Having everything at your fingertips
dustry requires of the software we pro- regardless of what role you have within
vide and make sure the software meets a company from executive level to sub-
the needs of our clients. In a time like contractors; we feel we have the right
this, how you communicate with your product to enable companies to go to the
subcontractors, suppliers is critically next level. We have invested very heav-
important and we need to be aware of ily in our software to meet the demands
the things we need to address. Going of our clients, but we are also investing
to Diggers – at whatever cost – was a heavily in industry experts allowing us to
no-brainer for our business,” Smith, shape solutions to really meet the clients’
the sole attendee at Diggers & Dealers needs.”
from overseas to have quarantined and Smith said his team had experience in
attended the forum, told Paydirt. servicing the top-end of town and mid-
Smith leads a team of 30 staffers tier sector, which would be the focus for
at HardHat from his Singapore base, HardHat.
meaning getting to Kalgoorlie in Oc- “The top-end of the market sees value
tober required some sort of effort; two such as productivity and visibility gains in
weeks hotel quarantine in Perth on a centralised platform such as HardHat,
route to the Goldfields and a two-day whereas the lower-end of the market
home isolation order upon return to Sin- more often than not do not have access
gapore. to the same resources to introduce tech-
Daily 6:30am YouTube gym workouts nologies to streamline their processes”
in his Perth hotel room before starting he said.
his virtual workday had Smith in good Tim Smith “Right now, we are 100% focused on
stead by the time West Australian Pre- the Australian market. We know this mar-
mier Hon Mark McGowan opened the ket, many of us are from Perth, mining is
29th Diggers & Dealers forum. base, as Smith and Co. start to ramp up ef- booming in Australia, and Aussie companies
“It was definitely worth it,” he said. forts to align with well-suited clients in the have an interest in using tech to be more pro-
“If I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have been able mining sector. ductive. You’ve just got to look at the number
to hear what the industry needs and make In addition to HardHat, Smith is also man- of autonomous trucks Australia has; 400 are
sure that our solutions are fit-for-purpose for aging director of private equity group Gold now autonomous, which represents 75% of
the industry.” Rhino, which helps fund early-stage tech the total autonomous vehicle numbers glob-
What Smith gleaned from the conference companies in Australia and New Zealand. ally.
was the significance of the top-end deals in Through Gold Rhino – the name reflects “We heard a lot from the speakers [at
the sector and the wave of discovery suc- Smith’s passion for contributing to and fund- Diggers] about how technology is changing
cess to HardHat’s business, which is prem- ing projects that help protect and populate jobs; they want to invest and keep those em-
ised on using best-in-class cloud technology rhinoceroses in Australia and South Africa – ployees. We are arming them with the equip-
to assist companies manage safety, people, there is potential to bring other tech start-ups ment to allow them to do that and allow them
operations and projects on a single platform. into the HardHat fold. to use tech and be better skilled so we have
HardHat was launched by Smith in Octo- Smith said HardHat’s appeal of providing a more technology-driven successful indus-
ber 2019 after the sale of OnePlace – a client “whole of project centricity” to companies try in Australia to compete with other regions
management cycle software tailored to the was resonating with industry. like Brazil, Asia and Africa.”
professional services sector – in May 2019. “Allowing people to see everything that is
HardHat starts from a financially sound going on with their project and allowing peo- – Mark Andrews

he dearth of dial-moving nickel opportunities available hand the opportunities in the nickel space. We are not nar-
Taround the world means there is unlikely to be any headline rowly focused on nickel, we talk to clean energy metals and
grabbing deals of significance in the space any time soon. we talk all the time on a primary focus on nickel and copper;
“I don’t know, I can’t comment on that; are there enough there’s a much wider universe of potential copper assets but
companies big enough to create a big headline deal?” IGO equally there is a much greater amount of competition for
Ltd managing director Peter Bradford said on the sidelines of copper assets,” he said.
Diggers & Dealers. “We have nibbled around the edges of other clean energy
IGO is involved in a number of JVs and holds interests in metals to try and understand it, so we have talked about
several companies targeting “high value rock representa- a secondary focus on lithium and rare earths. If you look
tion”, that is; Nova-style nickel-copper magmatic rocks, as it across our exploration space that is a good way to think
ramps up alignment with the clean energy sector. about where’s our real focus – half our exploration projects
“Everything is about value. Globally you can count on one are nickel, half are copper.’

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