Fatigue Science says that Newcrest Mining Ltd is the latest major mine to deploy its Readi predictive fatigue management technology site-wide at its Lihir gold mine in Papua New Guinea. An open-pit gold mine, Lihir employs around 4,500 people, many of whom operate safety-sensitive shiftwork operations, such as haul truck operators and bus drivers.
The statement said: “In adopting Readi, Newcrest positions itself among the rising number of global leading mining firms who have recently adopted the predictive fatigue management technology from Fatigue Science. Readi, as both a system of record for operational fatigue data and as a daily tool for supervisor decision-making, is based on scientifically-validated biomathematical modeling. With a proven and quantified impact on the safety and productivity of other mines that have deployed the technology, the investment by Lihir represents a clear step toward optimising operations using data-driven technology.”
“We’re thrilled to welcome Newcrest aboard with their landmark adoption of Readi at the Lihir mine,” says Andrew Morden, President & CEO of Fatigue Science. “With this implementation, Newcrest further affirms its mission to put health and safety at the forefront of its operations, while keenly leveraging proven technology that has a direct benefit to mine output at the same time.”
Fatigue Science cites Readi FMIS as “the world’s leading fatigue management information system.” Based on the biomathematical fatigue model, SAFTE™, Readi interprets operator sleep data and/or estimates of operators’ sleep derived from machine learning. “With these data, it calculates a unique and personalised fatigue prediction for every operator, for each hour in every shift. It then provides these hour-by-hour fatigue predictions both to supervisors and to the operators themselves via mobile notifications and optional wearables. ”
Supervisors at Lihir will receive daily push notifications at the start of every shift, alerting them to any haul truck operators or bus drivers under their supervision who are flagged with a high risk of fatigue – including fatigue that may arise later in that shift. Armed with these predictive insights, supervisors can take proactive measures, such as rotating safety-critical tasks and planning fatigue breaks, based on objective and validated fatigue data.
Additionally, Newcrest Lihir has chosen to provide ReadiWatch smartwatches to several hundred of their most safety-sensitive operators, such as those operating haul trucks and busses, so that they can receive on-wrist Fatigue Alerts ahead of periods of critical fatigue. The wearable devices also capture sleep data for even more personalised fatigue predictions. All sleep data are kept strictly confidential and are not shared with supervisors.
