Deswik has opened a new office in Jakarta, Indonesia, backed by a local consulting team to support deployment of its mine planning and scheduling software across the country’s open-pit and underground operations. The company will host Deswik Exchange Jakarta on 16 April to showcase practical workflows and case studies drawn from real‑world mining projects. A permanent in‑country team should shorten implementation cycles, improve on‑site training and support, and allow closer integration of Deswik tools with Indonesian regulatory, geotechnical and production planning requirements.

Rapid drawdown in earth and rockfill dams is modelled in Rocscience’s Slide2 by separating gradual, fully transient seepage analyses from a dedicated Rapid Drawdown option that embeds hydrogeologic assumptions directly into limit equilibrium slope stability. Engineers can define initial and final water tables, including partial drawdown lines, and apply four established methods – Effective Stress (B-bar), Duncan–Wright–Wong (1990), USACE (1970) two-stage and Lowe–Karafiath (1960) – to estimate post-drawdown pore pressures and factors of safety. The B-bar approach allows material-specific drainage behaviour to be varied, supporting sensitivity studies where low-permeability cores retain elevated pore pressures after reservoir lowering.

Hitachi Construction Machinery Europe has signed an agreement to factory-fit Trimble Earthworks 3D grade control on its excavators sold across Europe, creating a single-source purchase, training and support route for machine control. Qualifying Hitachi dealers will also supply Trimble WorksManager, enabling remote transfer of construction-ready 3D models, fleet-wide device management and offsite troubleshooting between office and site. The deal signals deeper integration of digital grade control into standard excavator offerings, reducing aftermarket retrofit complexity for contractors adopting precision earthworks workflows.