Immersive Technologies and OK Tedi have established the first fully-integrated Operator Performance Analytics (OPA) system as part of the Papua New Guinea miner’s focus on operator safety, Immersive says.

Following the successful delivery of continuous improvement projects and managed services by Immersive, OK Tedi opted to establish an OPA installation on-site with the dual goals of improving safety and machine care among their operators, Immersive, which is now part of Komatsu Ltd, said.

Using the OPA electronic operator scorecard, OK Tedi was able to drill down to individual operator performance indicators. These indicators can be used to see how an operator compares with their peers or are trending over time. “Ranking of all operators additionally provides a unique opportunity to motivate personal ownership of safety statistics and performance, while providing management an effective tool to identify training needs to improve overall mine site productivity,” Immersive said.

OPA data can also be filtered specific to machine errors, performance on different machines, performance over time and training history to locate the root cause of a performance trend. An initial dataset was analysed using six months of machine operational data from the field and simulator data, with this data used to identify outlier operators in terms of risk rating or performance against key metrics (such as spot time, average speed loaded and average tonnes per km/h).

Masket Siune, Superintendent Mine Business Improvement & Training OK Tedi, said: “OPA has enabled quicker analysis of mine operator performance to identify trends or patterns to mitigate risk relating to equipment reliability and operator productivity metrics.

“We now have a reliable operator data platform that gives real comprehensive data view to approach our operators and discuss training development needs or for reward and recognition for the outstanding performance based on both risk and productivity criteria.”

With multiple operational data sources integrated within OPA, OK Tedi easily identified a high incidence of high peak frame bias events, therefore prioritising simulator training for those operators contributing the highest error counts, Immersive said. Once underperforming operator groups or individuals are identified, these can be selected and assigned to a training needs analysis report.

Simulator training can then be conducted and training data automatically sent back to OPA —without manual intervention. Typical training scenarios for errors could require operators to navigate loaded trucks over rough road conditions or load and dump using the correct procedure. In turn, this can be used for assessment of training retention and impact.

Alex Da Silva, Global Professional Services Manager at Immersive Technologies, said: “At OK Tedi, analysis that previously took days or weeks, now takes minutes, integrating disparate data systems with simulator generated data provides a single, powerful platform for workforce development planning.”

OK Tedi, which mines copper, gold and silver in the Western province of PNG, plans to extend the use of OPA to additional machines types to further support its operations, according to Immersive.