National Group expands into mining automation

The National Group’s recent acquisition of Wolff Group expands the group into mining automation. Wolff is well known in the industry for their focus on innovation and technology and already have an established partnership with Caterpillar and Hastings Deering to implement and optimise Semi-Autonomous Tractor System (SATS) technology in a world’s-first application into a mining production environment.

National Group Managing Director Mark Ackroyd sees the acquisition of Wolff Group as an expansion and believes it will provide niche business opportunities.

“Adding Wolff to the National Group will allow us to deliver additional services in autonomous operations, so it was a logical choice for us,” he said. “Terry and his team at Wolff have a very similar organisational culture to ours and that was one of the most important things we spoke about during our discussions. The other was their work in autonomous operations and the focus towards the future of mining.

“We want to provide our customers with the best there is and staying on the cutting-edge of technology goes a long way in allowing us to do that.”

As part of the acquisition, National Group and Wolff have agreed to adopt a ‘business as usual’ approach to ensure minimal to no effect on the current Wolff workforce and customer base.

Wolff’s existing Managing Director, Terry Wolff, will stay actively involved in the business and is excited for Wolff to be joining an experienced industry player such as the National Group, with a key focus on growth.

“National Group met all of our foundations and culturally aligned with the way we already do business here at Wolff, so that made this decision a lot easier for us. We couldn’t think of a better company to pass on the baton to,” Wolff said. “National Group values our people, autonomous expertise and our ability to operate in the segments where we have a depth of knowledge and experience”.

“Here at the National Group, we are excited for the future and look forward to further extending the range of automated features for our expansive fleet of dozers and drills,” concluded Ackroyd.

Image: Semi-autonomous bulldozers.