A partnership has been established between Sedna Industrial IT Solutions, an African technology innovator, and Haivision, a provider of video networking and visual collaboration solutions. Together, they aim to introduce industrial and mining command control room solutions and software to heavy-duty businesses across the continent
“With the need for increased safety, monitoring and operational excellence on the rise, these world-class tools will give mines and industrial players the latest advances to stay safe and stay ahead,” Sedna remarked.
“Through this partnership with Haivision, our aim is to bring video feeds and plant supervisory control and data acquisition data from anywhere into a control room, transforming control rooms into crucial information centres. This empowers operators and stakeholders to make mission-critical decisions from a remote location.
“We’re thrilled to drive new innovations that enhance our data engineering capabilities and how we visualise critical data. Undoubtedly, this provides us with a competitive advantage on the continent,” remarked Sedna engineering manager Raymond Mhlongo.
“Sedna has been expanding its footprint significantly and Haivision has been cementing its place on the global stage as the best in the business when it comes to the critical solutions needed to enhance security, monitoring and safety. Together with Sedna’s technical expertise we can help businesses switch on and manage these solutions quickly and efficiently,” explained Mhlongo.
Haivision Africa and Europe sales director Matt Stone noted that the substantial volume of mining and industrial activity in Africa makes this expansion a logical step for the company’s Africa strategy.
“Our solution has the immense benefit of being cost-effective and easy to manage at the front end. However, it can be quite complex on the back end, and we need the right people on the ground in the first and second lines of support. This is why we had no hesitation in choosing Sedna as our partner – they have the deep-level expertise and track record we were looking for,” explained Stone.
According to Mhlongo, the advanced visual collaboration platforms can monitor different dashboards for plants and machinery and provide live video feeds to give a large view for situational awareness.
“Risk is on the rise for businesses in this area, whether through a seismic event, accidents or any unplanned event, including cyberattacks. This is why it is important for mines and manufacturers to rethink the way they are currently monitoring their sites.
“In our experience, many companies in Africa have neglected this aspect for too long and are at increased risk of facing major problems when things go wrong, which can happen in a heartbeat,” Mhlongo pointed out.
Haivision provides secure, live, low-latency video for mission-critical applications, with deployments in government, military, aerospace, and public safety organisations.
“Our platform is highly user-friendly, and we can have operators new to the system up and running in just 30 minutes. While some solutions may appear overly complicated, and others may be easy to use but expensive, ours operates on a web browser, ensuring speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, while also being easily customisable to specific needs,” emphasised Stone.
Haivision says it is “open to grow” further in Africa.
“We see immense potential on the continent and will also look to expand into areas like ports and rail, security operational centres at banks and tech companies, as well as areas like public transport, defence and emergency services," Stone explained. “However, we see as our first point of entry mining operational centres, which we are driving through this partnership."