WipWare’s Chief Technical Officer Thomas Palangio and Technical Specialists Kevin Rivard and Marty Wanner had the pleasure of working with some guests from SNF Group, demonstrating aerial imagery with drones and applications with our WipFrag photoanalysis software. Visiting our facility Wednesday May 30^th were Philippe Galy-Jammou of SNF France and Bruno Cote of SNF Canada.

It was a great opportunity to showcase the capabilities of our WipFrag software and how it can be used with drone technology. With the use of drone technology, drone orthomosaic images of a muck pile can be taken and analyzed to give a complete picture of our customer’s blasts.

It was a great opportunity to showcase the capabilities of our software and we look forward to working with Philippe and Bruno in the future.

Janice Leuschen interviewed Tom Palangio, President of WipWare for The Canadian Mining Journal in their February/March edition located under the Sudbury Innovation Cluster section on Innovation and Commercialization.

In the article, Tom speaks about WipWare’s WipFrag software and the ability to measure a blast. “For us to be able to measure it in real time, actually opened a whole bunch of doors to the automated process.”

He believes that the market for new products and services for mines is opening. “NOW IS THE TIME”.

It has been difficult, in the past, to get mining companies to look at new technologies to improve their processes. The Commercialization gap has makes it challenging for inventors to convince mines to use their new inventions. 

In the mid-1990’s, Tom paired WipFrag software with his consulting services. This provided a great opportunity to show the mining industry how the software works giving tangible results. Due to an agreement with his former employer, Tom was not allowed to sell his WipFrag software domestically. As a result, Tom travelled extensively throughout Panama, Peru, Chile, South Africa and Australia. The international mining industry is more receptive to new innovations and technology. 

In 1998, Tom started selling domestically and has continued, to this day, to expand into the North American market. 

You can read more on this interview on page 49-51 for the full article.

WipWare is pleased to announce that we have signed an agreement with Haver & Boecker OHG in Oelde, Germany to handle our products. Haver & Boecker is a leading manufacturer in processing, storage, mixing packing, filling, palletizing and loading systems. The company’s mission is to deliver the best of these technologies to the marketplace.
See their website here: Haver & Boecker Canada

“One of their divisions, W.S. Tyler is renowned for their standards in screen media and it is a complementary and natural fit to be working together to characterize materials,” says Tom Palangio, President of WipWare.

The company founded by Carl Haver and Eduard Boecker in 1887 has been producing products for quarries, sand and gravel, fertilizers, paint, powder coating, chemical and pharmaceutical companies and the food industry – Haver & Boecker analytical equipment is used in almost all areas of industry.

On December 6th Wipware signed a license agreement with Datamine to support and distribute WipWare software products and services globally.
“We are extremely happy to work with Datamine as our vision and plans are closely aligned and we have much to gain in working together,” said Tom Palangio, President of Wipware.

With a global presence, Datamine provides solutions ranging from exploration data management and orebody modelling to mine planning and operations. These solutions are provided to over 1,600 companies around the world. Their software solutions integrate with consulting and training services to ensure that clients are provided with industry-leading support and expertise.

Established in 1981, Datamine revolutionized the industry as a pioneer of 3D computerized resource modelling and estimation tools. Over a period of 30 years Datamine became a leading supplier of geology and mine planning software. In 2010, CAE Inc purchased Datamine and Century Systems Technologies. They made significant investments to create an end-to-end portfolio of products and developed several new products. One of these included the innovative Summit cloud-based technical mining platform. In July 2015, Constellation Software Inc (TSX: CSU) acquired Datamine, Canada’s largest software company. Building on their history of domain expertise, coupled with CSI’s deep capabilities in the software industry, Datamine continues to develop the mining industry’s most advanced range of technical software and complementary services.

The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame recognizes outstanding achievement in the mining industry, celebrates individual leadership and aims to inspire future generations in mining.

Tom Palangio, President of WipWare Inc, was inducted into the Mining Hall of Fame. SAMSSA presented the award at Dynamic Earth in Sudbury December 5th. After 15 years, Tom decided to retire as President of SAMSSA. SAMSSA honoured him last night at the SAMSSA AGM.

From Humble Beginnings Come Great Things

Thomas Palangio, Chief Technical Officer at WipWare spoke at the induction and had the honour of introducing his father, Tom. Thomas spoke about Tom’s life in the early years including his academic accomplishments and early career. The full speech is available in the here.

Tom’s story began when a couple of Italian immigrants chose to call Northern Ontario home. In 1965 Tom moved to Southern Ontario and dabbled with electrical and mechanical engineering. Also, while there he met and married his wife, Phyllis. Eventually, he completed his education in architectural design and returned to Northern Ontario.

When an opportunity arose with Dupont, he accepted and so began is love affair with explosives. After 27 years with Dupont, later ETI, he became the Technical Specialist. He quickly realized measuring the blast might be lucrative niche in the mining industry. In 1986, Tom Palangio, in collaboration with John Franklin and Norbert Marez created the Waterloo Image Enhancement Process, or WIEP.  John and Norbert worked in Waterloo’s Earth and Computer Sciences divisions. Recognizing the importance and sales potential of their discovery, the trio formed WipWare to further develop and market the technology internationally. 

Tom has taken some leaps

Prior to Tom’s induction into the Mining Hall of Fame, Hugh Kruzel wrote a featured SAMSSA article on October 17th. In this article, Hugh speaks with Tom about the leaps Tom has taken as an entrepreneur and innovator.

When Hugh asked Tom about his childhood, Tom explained how he liked to build things.

“I was always drawn to art, mechanical, electrical and scientific topics at a time when space was in the news. I’m a real boomer. I liked to build things and take them apart and was resourceful, but never thought I’d earn a living playing with the stuff that interested me. Leonardo da Vinci would be my history hero. My teachers said I was “disruptive” and it took me many years to realize that’s a good thing”.

Image Analysis Technology – Mining Industry

In 1995, Tom started Topex Inc – his own explosives consulting firm. Later, he formed WipWare Inc. to commercially market and sell image analysis technology that improves blast fragmentation results.

“The explosives business was ‘booming’ and I worked in Peru, Chile, South Africa, Australia and Hong Kong in the next few years providing training, troubleshooting, blast designs, vibration control, high speed camera work and other specialized services.”

Tom Palangio, President and CEO WipWare Inc.

One thing Tom has always believed in – mentoring newcomers to the world of business because this creates new jobs and he tries to participate in organizations that support this. After 15 years as President of SAMSSA, Tom decided to retire.

Tom has more than 40 years in the mining and explosives industries, over 22 years as an entrepreneur and won various awards and recognitions including: the NOBA Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2003; Export Development Awards in 2001 and 2002; the Ontario Leadership Award in the Provincial Global Traders Award category in 2003; the OACETT Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2009; was recognized by PROFIT 500 as being in the top third of growth companies in Canada in 2013 and received the Northern Ontario Business Award for Innovation in 2015.

Throughout this week of November 13-17, O-Pitblast has been lecturing at Blaster University on drone usage. The focus was for Blast and Topography Control. Additional training was on Fragmentation Control by Photo Analysis, Blast Design and Blast Optimization. As part of the lectures, Francisco Leite, Technical Services Director at O-Pitblast used WipWare’s WipFrag software. This software was excellent for demonstrating Blast Optimization and Fragmentation Analysis.

Students had a great opportunity to see how WipWare’s fragmentation analysis software allows instant PSD analysis of digital images. One lucky student will be receiving a full version of WipFrag for Windows free for participating in the workshops.

Thank you again to Francisco Leite for providing this opportunity to showcase our WipFrag software to the Blaster University students.