Endeavour Mining’s greenfield Houndé Gold Operation (HGO) in Burkina Faso has recently gone into development and with quick timelines to get equipment to site and operators trained. Endeavour Mining has selected operator training solutions from Immersive Technologies.
“In the short time the site has been operational the simulator training program has already produced significant improvement in operator behaviours resulting in a reduction unscheduled maintenance including tyre, shifting and transmission abuse as well as improvements in spotting times and incorrect brake application. Over time we plan to provide training in the simulators for people of the local community not employed by HGO. Our first priority is to train the personnel selected for operational positions. This is quite a lengthy process,” explains Jeremy Langford EVP – Project and Technical Services Group at Endeavour Mining.
Operators are trained on specific behaviours that impact machine health, safety and productivity and management is able to identify which operators require additional training.
“In our baseline evaluation we noted a common problem where many operators were using a gear too high for the grade thereby impacting transmission performance. After training was conducted operators later returned to one of the two simulators for a re-measure and we found the training had resulted in an 85% decrease in improper gear selection,” says Anthony Bruce, Regional Vice President Africa, Europe & CIS, Immersive Technologies.
The site reported an:
- 80% reduction in tire abuse errors
- 67.7% reduction in incorrect brake application
- 41.5% reduction in engine damage
- 11 second improvement in spot time
- 6.44 second reduction in average loading reversing time
- 1.57 minute improvement in average circuit time
“These types of improvements are why we selected Immersive Technologies for simulator training. The level of support and focus on results is what we need to make our mine safer and more profitable,” Langford says.
Endeavour is using two simulators from Immersive Technologies with multiple simulator modules and is the first mine using this level of technology in Burkina Faso.
Endeavour owns five operating mines in West Africa. The mines are located in Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso and are expected to produce between 575,000 and 600,000 oz in 2016.
