by Gary Mintchell | Jun 25, 2025 | Robots, Sensors, Software, Technology
This is part two of my reports from the Hexagon Live Global Event. I had been to one previous event for only a day. Hexagon is such a large company comprised of many parts that I had a bit of struggle understanding it all.
The core Hexagon involves measurement, metrology. They have precision measurement tools for the small, medium, and very large targets. Tools for building applications complement these instruments.
Hexagon also comprises much software, having acquired Intergraph years ago and others since. Company focus has become easier with the announced spinoff of much of the software business into a new company called Octave.
Octave
Mattias Stenberg, who is leading Octave, explained the new company’s focus taking the musical analogy of an octave—taking it to the next level. The core of the new company consists of these four businesses from Hexagon:
- Asset Lifecycle Intelligence—Intelligence that drives decision-making efficiency and lifecycle value creation
- SIG—Safety, Infrastructure, and Geospatial—Act on information to save lives, improve infrastructure and enhance services
- ETQ—ETQ Reliance—ETQ Reliance is a cloud-native quality management system solution (QMS), powered by an agile platform that drives 40+ best-in-class applications adaptable to your unique environment. ETQ is the leading provider of quality, EHS and compliance management SaaS software, trusted by the world’s strongest brands.
- Bricsys—Hexagon AB, a global leader in digital solutions, today announced the acquisition of Bricsys, a fast-growing developer of CAD (computer-aided design) software that has been at the forefront of providing open, collaborative construction technology solutions since its founding in 2002. Its CAD platform, BricsCAD, supports 2D/3D general, mechanical, and sheet metal design and building information modelling (BIM) in one system.
I don’t know if this was supposed to be another musical reference, but as a guitarist, I’ll take it as such. Octave is Intelligence at Scale. They see themselves not just as a builder of software, but as helping customers evolve, adapt, predict, prevent by providing pre-trained agents. The platforms will be embedded, context aware, mission critical systems, validated.
This comment struck me. I concluded my first report with the thought that software becomes more powerful, yet it’s still trying to solve the problems I had in 1977. With power comes complexity. Stenberg noted a survey they conducted with C-level executives see more software, more complexity, more dashboards…and yet, less actual visibility. Systems that don’t talk to each other creating silos.
My concluding thought on my last essay was that we must not have a technical problem—we must have a people problem.
Only 20% of execs told them they are getting something from digital transformation. OK, I can’t resist thinking of an irony—yet they order their employees to use AI, or else???
They envision a process where customers build digital first, where the digital twin is a reality (he calls it “mirrorworld”). These will enable the movement from reactive to predictive (another future vision I’ve written about for 20 years or more).
A final vision—Create self-aware, resilient infrastructure.
Robotics
Moving on to another product line—robotics. I shot a short video of Hexagon’s newest robot—Aeon. This “humanoid”, or human-form-factor, robot exhibits quite advanced ability to do the work of human assemblers. When I asked why they developed the robot to look and act like a robot, they told me that existing work stations are designed for humans. Therefore, this is an easy replacement for non-existent human workers on the assembly line.
Digital Twins
Returning to digital twins. I spoke with Jeremy Treverrow about uses of digital twins. Initially, customers could use Hexagon’s precision measurement technology to create a digital twin of a component part. Perhaps this is a service and repair part no longer in production with perhaps no good design information existing.
Using the Hexagon Design X software set, the imported digital twin can be exported in an igis file, used for simulation, and can even design a manufacturing process around it.
A lot of power.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 24, 2025 | Marketing
I was on a Board of Education in the 1980s. Another member and I pushed for restriction of smoking on school grounds. Another member was a purveyor of tobacco products at the wholesale level.
That member brought a stack of documentation at least a foot high purporting to show the positive health benefits of smoking.
They thought they had the right of free speech to promote ideas contrary to nearly unanimous research about the hazards of smoking—both to the smoker and to others around them.
My wife and I were considering European vacations. People in many cities of western Europe are rebelling against tourists. It seems that people are buying many apartments at a premium price in order to rent them to tourists through AirBnB or equivalent companies. The unintended consequences include housing shortages for natives and increasing prices for property rendering them too expensive for locals.
AirBnB issued a press release saying the real cause was hotels, because that’s where 80% of tourists stay. (Hmmm?) Do hotels contribute to the situation by buying properties? Probably some. But let us not be duplicitous.
Some oil companies just sued under the First Amendment right to freedom of speech to be able to contradict overwhelming evidence garnered from scientific research conducted globally that show direct links to burning fossil fuels, air pollution, and climate change.
The men who wrote the original documents of the US government including the First Amendment discussed the necessary corollary to free speech—responsibility.
An entire industry exists to massage words such that a client can appear to be innocent even when not.
Many companies and people, on the other hand, have discovered the fruit of the moral value of owning mistakes and improving.
Let’s hope that you and I can avoid the temptation of lying in favor of honesty—even if it hurts. And calling out those who fail. Be aware of what you read.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 23, 2025 | News
I’ve written a column for an Italian automation magazine for more than 10 years. Here is the latest one. From there, you can get an idea of what’s happening in Italy.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 21, 2025 | Data Management, Software
I recently wrote an article for my website about technology complexity within industrial technology. Engineering managers have stood at conferences pleading with the standards and technology developers to find ways to simplify interfaces and connectivity.
OPC Foundation keeps adding layers of companion specifications. ODVA members listened to engineers who need help implementing EtherNet/IP (or just ethernet networks) and proceeded to ignore the plea. Paul Miller, an analyst at Forrester reported from a survey where 90% of executives reported data problems from their digital transformation. 71% reported measurement related data problems.
Mattias Stenberg, head of the new software company spinning out from Hexagon called Octave, reported from another survey his group has performed that only one in five executives thought they were getting any value from digital transformation.
The Vice President of Product Development of the company where I worked in the 1970s (back in the day before layers of vice presidents) offered a job to me to leave manufacturing and become his data manager. He was prescient. 45 years later, companies are still trying to manage data. Solutions have become more complex, technology has advance exponentially, yet we still have problems gathering, refining, contextualizing, and using data.
These thoughts were generated from the Hexagon Live Global Conference I attended this week in Las Vegas. I have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around just who Hexagon is. Evidently, I’m not alone. But the company is making it easier by splitting off four groups into Octave.
The simplest definition, yet also most definitive, came from Ola Rollén Hexagon Chairman recounting the company’s 25-year history of growth. “Hexagon is the world’s most sophisticated measuring tape.” Indeed, several of my interviews delved into the world of accurately measuring the very large and the very small. This year’s slogan, “When it has to be done right.”
The new ATS800 laser tracker can easily capture complex shapes with up to micron precision. The company released Autonomous Metrology Suite, software developed on its cloud-based Nexus platform that is designed to transform quality control across manufacturing industries worldwide. By removing all coding from coordinate measuring machine (CMM) workflows, it helps manufacturers speed up critical R&D and manufacturing processes as experienced metrologists become harder to find.
Hexagon and several partners are solving what has been an intractable and troubling problem—data locked into paper-based formats such as pdf files. Several demonstrated the ability to read text and pdf documents that are unstructured data, use a form of AI to tag the data, and then extract to a useable database. This is truly a great advance. Several workforce solutions designed to give companies the ability to attract younger workers into technical positions were demonstrated on the show floor.
Stenberg talked of another problem executives cited—data silos that prevent people from using data to make good decisions. I have been writing about solutions designed to break through data silos for 25 years. I’m beginning to wonder if it is not a technology problem. Perhaps it’s a people problem.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 19, 2025 | Robots, Software
Everyone wants to be NVIDIA’s best friend. This friendship focuses on the world of robotics and simulation. In brief:
Flexiv launches the Flexiv-Isaac Bridge App, empowering developers to design, test, and deploy force-controlled robotics applications in hyper-realistic virtual environments.
The interesting thing is the force-controlled part. I remember an application I wrote about a few years ago where the developer of a robotic prosthetic arm had a design goal of being able to pick up a grape with squishing it. I watch these technologies closely anticipating even greater use cases that will help us all.
Flexiv announced release of the Flexiv-Isaac Bridge App, bringing high-fidelity force-control simulation to NVIDIA’s Isaac Sim. This partnership enables robotics developers and end-users to program, model, test, and deploy complex force-controlled, AI-empowered robotics applications in simulated environments that closely mimic contact-rich real-world conditions.
To highlight this new capability, Flexiv’s engineering team released a video in which a simulated Rizon 4 robot completed the classic Tower of Hanoi puzzle in Isaac Sim. The simulation exactly replicated the robot’s real-world movements and showcased its force-controlled “hole search” and compliant movement capabilities. This underscores Flexiv’s commitment to minimizing the sim-to-real gap to improve training, programming, and operational performance. Additionally, this demonstration emphasizes Flexiv’s drive to ensure seamless compatibility with one of the world’s most widely used virtual robotics platforms.
Isaac Sim enables developers to build hyper-realistic, detailed virtual environments, while Flexiv’s Elements programming system allows robotic applications to be effortlessly programmed and refined. With the Bridge App connecting these tools, customers are empowered to create applications, build digital twins of their facilities, design mission profiles, and run high-fidelity virtual tests before deploying robots in real-world scenarios. These simulations provide valuable insights into application performance, risk assessment, and operational efficiency.
By leveraging both Isaac Sim’s ability to generate real-world simulations and Flexiv Elements’ support for simulating real-world force-based actions, Flexiv aims to accelerate the application development cycle. With developers now able to refine robot movements and iteratively test applications from anywhere in the world, development costs can be significantly reduced, while remote support can ensure greater reliability in real-world deployments.
In its continued commitment to community-driven innovation, Flexiv has made its Tower of Hanoi codebase freely available on GitHub. This initiative encourages developers, academics, and customers to build upon Flexiv’s work, fostering a collaborative ecosystem that promotes creativity and customization.
By combining force-controlled robotics and effortless programming with NVIDIA’s cutting-edge simulation tools, Flexiv is revolutionizing development workflows. This leads the way toward safer, smarter, and more adaptable robotic systems that transform both application development and human-robot interaction.
