Tag Archives: mine safety

Impairment Science launches new impairment monitoring tool

IoT, Mining safety, Mining services, Mining software, , , ,

Impairment Science Inc has released a new tool that could help mining companies test whether employees are unimpaired and, therefore, fit for duty.

Druid Enterprise embeds the Druid impairment app into a cloud-based management portal for business managers to monitor and analyse employees’ Druid tests and flag individuals who may be impaired.

ISI’s goal is to help employers create a ‘culture of safety’ in the workplace, particularly in the construction, manufacturing, mining, and transportation industries, it said.

“Druid assesses performance impairment due to any cause, including marijuana, opioids, prescription medicines, illicit drugs, alcohol, fatigue, illness, chronic health conditions, or injury, such as concussion,” the company said. “Grounded in neuroscience research on impairment, the app requires users to perform four game-like tasks that measure reaction time, decision-making accuracy, hand-eye coordination, time estimation, balance, and the ability to perform divided-attention tasks.”

All four tasks can be completed in under three minutes, with the app collecting and integrating hundreds of measurements during that time to produce an overall impairment score.

“Through Druid Enterprise, employees’ impairment scores can be viewed individually or collectively by score range, age range, gender, or workgroup (production, distribution, sales, administration, etc), either for a specific date or over a period of time (by week, month, days of the week, etc),” the company said. “Graphical displays draw attention to higher scores or a pattern of scores that may indicate impairment and thus warrant further examination.”

Dr Michael Milburn, Druid’s inventor and ISI’s founder, said: “Researchers at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the University of Colorado and Washington State University have confirmed Druid’s accuracy and sensitivity. Druid is the only impairment measurement tool that is quick, portable, objective, accurate, sensitive, and inexpensive, and that’s why it’s now being used by several other high-profile researchers who study impairment.”

The first Druid Enterprise pilot was conducted at a large Canadian underground mine, according to CEO Rob Schiller.

“This collaboration allowed us to finetune the app’s enterprise capabilities to deliver the kinds of data presentations that management could use in real time to protect their workers’ safety on the job,” he said.

The mine subsequently licensed Druid Enterprise, and that set the stage for ISI to initiate several other pilot programs in mining and manufacturing companies.

Alongside the Druid Enterprise launch, Impairment Science also released a new version of the Druid impairment app for personal use to improve user experience. This update improves accuracy, clarifies instructions, and provides additional ways for users to interpret their performance scores, according to the company.

Murray & Roberts Cementation achieves major safety milestone

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The year has started strongly for mining services specialist Murray & Roberts Cementation, with a safety achievement of five million fatality-free shifts.

According to Mike Wells, Managing Director of Murray & Roberts Cementation, this landmark has been reached as part of a concerted corporate journey towards Zero Harm.

“This exciting milestone, which we reached in early January 2021, is the result of years of commitment by every member of the company – through multiple initiatives and programs,” Wells said. “This has included our unrelenting focus on the Major Accident Prevention program, as well as stringent risk assessments and the verification of critical controls in the field.”

Perhaps the greatest outcome of these efforts, he highlighted, is that the company’s safety leadership has succeeded in motivating and inspiring all employees in fully internalising safety principles. This has entrenched the belief that Zero Harm can indeed be achieved, with each employee returning home safely every day.

“We have seen a vital attitudinal change over the years, where success has bred more success and all our people take ownership of their safe work practices – both personally and collectively,” Wells said. “This builds a resilient safety culture, which has included a crucial commitment to doing work right the first time.”

Underpinning much of the success in safe working practices has been the increased investment in effective training strategies at the Murray & Roberts Training Academy at Bentley Park near Carletonville, South Africa. Here, the latest technologies and methods – supported by realistic mock-ups of mining environments – ensure workers are fully prepared for all working conditions.

“Our mining customers today regard the commitment to fatality-free operations as a given – not only for themselves but for their service providers,” Wells said. “We are proud to be able to demonstrate our success as part of the broader progress in this field by the whole mining sector.”

Over the years during which the five million fatality-free shifts have been achieved, Murray & Roberts Cementation has conducted a diverse range of projects across sub-Saharan Africa, including large shaft sinking contracts. Employee numbers over this time have averaged about 4,000, Wells said.

Caterpillar and Guardhat collaborate to improve surface mining safety

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Caterpillar says it is collaborating with Guardhat to offer its proven safety solutions to surface mining operations through Cat® dealers.

The two companies are also developing a new system, Cat Connected Worker, which will use wearables to provide added protection for people. The new system will also deliver event-based monitoring and mapping to aid analysis and enhancement of the mining environment, Cat says.

Bill Dears, Cat MineStar™ Solutions Marketing Manager, said: “Leveraging Guardhat technology, proven in challenging industrial settings, will speed development of a comprehensive, digital solution sought by mining customers. As a component of Cat MineStar Detect safety capabilities, Connected Worker will provide insight that will enable managers to create safer operations ‒ and to respond quickly if an incident does occur.”

Indranil Roychoudhury, Chief Operating Officer, Guardhat, said: “We are pleased to work with Caterpillar to deliver ‘smart’ technology to enhance miners’ safety. Our safety monitoring and data analysis system is a multi-product, feature-packed intelligent safety and productivity system that integrates cutting-edge wearable technology and advanced proprietary software. It is equipped to detect, alert and help prevent industrial work-related incidents, and it is designed to collect and analyse data to support and improve worker safety and productivity programs.”

When developed, Cat Connected Worker will provide precise location of all workers to the mine monitoring system, and it will allow communication between individuals, teams and sites, according to the company. Data will enable monitoring personnel to understand the environment workers are facing in near real time, which will facilitate decision making.

As part of Cat MineStar, Connected Worker will be supported by Cat dealers worldwide. The same Cat dealers are equipped to supply current Guardhat technology to surface mining operations of all types.

Connected devices in the Guardhat line include hard hats, personnel tags, asset tags and smartphones using Guardhat applications. The system is Wi-Fi and cellular compatible for communications with the Safety Control Center.

Safety-rated lockout system wins plaudits at IMII innovation awards

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Sudbury-based SafeBox has won the International Mineral Innovation Institute (IMII) Innovation Award for Best Safety Innovation Product.

This award, presented on behalf of IMII and the Saskatchewan Mining Supply Chain Forum, follows a nomination by EECOL Electric.

Gabriel Janakaraj, Business Development Manager for SafeBox, said: “We at SafeBox and Ionic are excited to receive this award.

“As a new initiative, this is an incredible milestone and one that will motivate us to continue innovating in the mining industry and beyond. This is a great example of how something that seems simple on paper can not only increase production performance but spark a revolution in how we approach occupational safety.”

Andre Dumais, President of Ionic Mechatronics, added: “It’s an honour to receive this award. We want to provide organisations with a safer and more efficient way to complete energy isolation procedures. Safety and innovation are at the core of SafeBox, and this award highlights that we are on the right track.”

SafeBox is a safety-rated lockout system that mechanically isolates various energy sources from a single location. This system provides an innovative approach for a safer, more efficient, and effective lockout and tagout process, according to the company.

SafeBox is manufactured in Canada, and its development is supported by Ionic Mechatronics.

UP’s Vehicle Dynamics Group to boost UG mine safety with new testing facility

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An engineering team at the University of Pretoria (UP) has pioneered an underground procedure which tests the performance of collision avoidance systems (CAS) in an effort to improve the safety of workers on mines through reducing unwanted interaction between vehicles and pedestrians.

The Vehicle Dynamics Group (VDG) is a research unit at UP’s Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering that is actively involved in the South Africa and international mining industry.

It saw a need to develop such a system based on the continued number of fatalities that have occurred as a result of interaction with mining machines and to be in step with subsequent changes (yet to be promulgated) in Chapter 8 of South Africa’s Mine Health and Safety Act (1996) that requires trackless mobile machines to warn the operator if a significant risk of collision exists. If the operator fails to heed the warning, the machine must automatically slow down and stop safely.

“Mining machines are becoming smarter by the day, with smart, connected vehicles promising to be the mining method of the future,” Professor Schalk Els, VDG Researcher, said. “Smart mining machines are now utilising technology such as high-precision GPS and automotive radars to prevent unwanted interaction with other machines, pedestrians and infrastructure.”

Dr Herman Hamersma, also a VDG Researcher, added: “This development is a stepping stone to full autonomy – not only on mines but in urban and highway environments too. Mining machines typically perform repetitive tasks with well-defined mission profiles, which allows for the automation of many of their operations.”

The VDG has aided in the formulation of industry guidelines to analyse and improve the readiness level of collision avoidance offerings on the market, according to UP, and has developed a standard testing procedure to evaluate both surface and underground collision management systems based on guidelines set out by the Minerals Council South Africa.

CAS assessments were previously limited to above-ground testing, with UP saying its involvement has brought about change in the CAS space, having contributed significantly to the increasing maturity of commercial offerings.

“With the VDG’s recent development of an underground testing system, it is anticipated that the technology readiness of current underground CAS offerings will be even more improved,” it said.

The performance of CAS is tested by way of a stage-gate approach. The first stage gate is a lab-scale test conducted on light vehicles in a controlled environment. The CAS is installed on the light vehicles exactly as would be in a mining environment.

Dr Hamersma said: “These vehicles are equipped with brake robots that control the stopping distance and can be controlled to represent minimum brake specifications, while high-precision GPS accurately measures the speeds and positions of the vehicles. An advanced data capturing and control system is used to control the brake robot and to record the GPS data, and the decisions communicated to the test vehicle by the CAS.”

If the CAS passes the lab-scale test, it can proceed to the next stage-gate, where the system is subjected to a single interaction test conducted in an environment that is more representative of a mine. To date, testing has been limited to surface tests due to the reliance on high-precision GPS as the ground truth measurement. However, the VDG team’s recent development of an underground system makes use of LiDAR (which uses laser light to calculate distances), cameras and automotive radar to measure the distance between objects and their speeds.

The system has been tested at a training facility at one of South Africa’s underground mines, and the first live underground single interaction test is in the pipeline. The system will be used to validate the lab-scale results of underground CAS solutions in their intended underground environment where line of sight, dust and uneven, slippery road surfaces are serious concerns.

The international community has noticed the activity in this space in South Africa, and this has led to collaborations with international CAS vendors and industry bodies such as the International Council on Mining & Metals (ICMM), the ISO working group leading the development of the collision avoidance standard and a project in collaboration with Mining3, a research institute based in Australia that was funded by the Australian Coal Association Research Programme (ACARP).

CEA-Leti and Davey Bickford Enaex extend electronic initiation system collaboration

Automation, Explosives and blasting, IoT, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, Mining safety, Mining services, , , , ,

CEA-Leti and Davey Bickford Enaex, a worldwide leader in blasting solutions, have extended their joint laboratory project for another three years to, they say, “continue development of innovative radio-frequency communication systems that remotely control networks of high-tech wireless electronic detonators”.

The common lab will build on the partners’ recent success in developing an electronic initiation system without using surface wire that offers increased safety, flexibility and productivity to the blasting market. Like the earlier partnership, the ongoing work will take place in the frame of IRT Nanoelec, a Grenoble-based consortium focused on R&D in the field of semiconductor devices and ICT technologies.

The recently developed system consists of DaveyTronic® electronic detonators with bi-directional radio modules placed on the surface of an open-pit mine. The wireless network communicates with a digital blasting system located a few kilometers away from the blasting zone and is controlled by a wireless communication protocol specifically developed and optimised to ensure safe, reliable and synchronised operation of hundreds of detonating elements in open-pit mines. A key innovation of the new blasting solution is the wireless activation of the detonators, the companies say.

“Most mining operators around the world are striving to cope with the challenges of always guaranteeing the safety of their personnel during blasting operations and always searching for ways to increase productivity,” they said. “One of the ways to do that is limiting the time spent on the bench while priming the blast.”

The main safety benefit of a wired electronic initiation system is offering bi-directional communication between the detonators and the blasting equipment. The challenge for CEA-Leti and Davey Bickford Enaex was to remove the surface wire, generating a significant reduction of the operations on the bench (connecting, troubleshooting), while keeping this two-way communication.

“This new system, called DaveyTronic Edge, is paving the way to teleoperated/ automated priming operations,” the companies said.

Nicolas Besnard, Technologies and Systems Director of Davey Bickford Enaex, said: “As a global leader in blasting solutions, our company is committed to developing innovative pyrotechnic-initiation systems for mining and blasting companies around the world.

“Our collaboration with CEA-Leti has been a strong, two-way partnership that has helped Davey Bickford maintain its position in the blasting industry, and this extended common lab will help ensure we continue to offer our customers the latest in productive, safe and reliable systems in the digital era.”

Swan Gerome, Business Development Manager at CEA-Leti, said: “CEA-Leti’s expertise in radio technologies for industry, including radio-frequency system characterisation and channel-sounding tools, is a good match for Davey Bickford’s vision of providing digital technologies to the mining and blasting industries.

“This extension will open the way for us to continue innovating to bring new solutions to those markets.”

Ausdrill gets hands on with hands-off-steel diamond drilling tech

Automation, Mineral exploration, Mining consumables, Mining equipment, Mining industry recognition, Mining safety, Mining services, , , , , , , , , ,

With Ausdrill having recently added a Boart Longyear LF160 drill rig and FL262 FREEDOM™ LOADER combination to its diamond drilling fleet in Australia, IM caught up with Eric Gobbert, Senior Operations Manager, Exploration, to find out more about the company’s ‘hands-off-steel’ initiatives.

The newest coring rig – capable of pulling a 4.5 m sample – comes with a tilting top drive head to simplify rod handling, a foot clamp and braking device, and visible wireline. This is the second LF160 in Ausdrill’s portfolio, and a third rig is on the way. Meanwhile, the company is actively exploring a similar system capable of offering 6 m samples.

One rig is currently active at a Queensland coal operation, with the second at a nickel operation in the Goldfields of Western Australia. The third is expected to go to the Pilbara iron ore sector.

It is the combination of the LF160 with the FL262 FREEDOM LOADER that is bringing safety benefits to Ausdrill and its customers.

With totally hands-free rod handling, the combined rig and loader require no intervention from the driller’s assistant to trip in and align the rods or connect to the top drive head – thus offering greater freedom to drill by reducing the risk of hand and back injuries while handling rods. This freedom of movement comes as a result of the FREEDOM LOADER’s remote-control panel, which allows drillers to move to – and work from – a safer location away from the risks of moving rods.

“It’s a good innovation and has enabled us to provide a much-needed solution,” Gobbert said.

Ausdrill, a Perenti company, was encouraged to adopt this new diamond drilling technology as part of its own commitment to developing the mines of the future in partnership with clients. “Most companies have technology roadmaps with a strong safety vision. These roadmaps outline the future expectations for increased safety of exploration drill rigs,” Gobbert told IM.

Exploration drilling is an obvious place for Tier 1 miners to look to for safety improvements. A manual and repetitive job, traditional diamond drilling comes with many injuries as a result of drillers and offsiders removing and inserting heavy drill rods into the rigs. While automating part of the exploration drilling process may not provide the same financial payback as automating haul trucks or blasthole rigs, it does significantly reduce risk to personnel.

Gobbert agrees: “If you look at the drill inserts and the ongoing safety risks associated with being a driller’s offsider, or drilling in general, reducing the whole hands-on steel process and going down the automated or autonomous path makes sense.”

It is improving safety that is the real aim of leveraging such technology, according to Gobbert.

“De-risking the manual handling component is the real winning aspect of this,” he said. “We all want to achieve our business aims, but more importantly ensure our staff and our client’s staff are safe in the process.”

And, by reducing these risks, companies are ensuring continuity of operations, with personnel less likely to obtain the injuries that so often come with diamond drilling.

“Safety has always been at the centre of our technological drive – we understand that a safe project is a successful project,” Gobbert said.

This is not Ausdrill’s first foray into hands-off-steel diamond drilling. Drill Rigs Australia, an Ausdrill subsidiary up until July, previously engineered a similar style rod presenting system on one of its rigs at a Tier 1 client’s operation. Gobbert says the rig is still successfully operating – a full five years on.

“Ausdrill has a 30+ year history of designing and customising fleet to suit the needs of our clients and the swiftly-evolving market,” Gobbert says. “Today, we work in partnership with our clients, OEMs and third-party tech service providers to bring a bespoke combination of fleet and equipment, geared specifically to the needs of each project. Our project success and notable safety records showcase just how well we are delivering on our intentions, and tracking along our roadmap.”

SRK reflects on rock-related accidents in South Africa mining industry

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Rock-related accidents in South Africa’s mining sector have reduced significantly in recent decades, due in large part to incremental improvements in rock engineering practice, SRK Consulting explains.

According to William Joughin (pictured), Chairman of SRK Consulting and himself a rock engineering expert, the company’s contribution in this field has included assisting mines with reviews of safety practices, as well as providing safe rock engineering designs and detailed seismic hazard analysis.

Fall of ground (FOG) is the leading cause of fatalities in the sector, making up a third of mining fatalities in 2019, according to the Minerals Council South Africa. The organisation has reported recently that total FOG injuries have dropped from 1,121 in 2003 to 379 in 2019, while FOG fatalities are down from 131 to 20 over this period.

Joughin notes, however, that this reduction in the number of injuries and fatalities is also linked to the general decline in mining industry employment. There have been few major technological changes implemented in the last five years, in particular, which could help reduce injuries and fatalities. Instead, the focus has been on behavioural change.

“The industry is focusing its efforts on changing human behaviour, because the exposure of people remains high and workers have to manually implement safety measures,” Joughin said. “These efforts have had mixed results, but there is renewed research and development into mechanisation that could significantly reduce the exposure of workers to the more hazardous aspects of mining.”

Methods of seismic monitoring and hazard analysis continue to be developed as new technologies become available. Within its diverse range of projects conducted for the mining industry, SRK contributes to raising safety levels in South Africa mines in these and other ways, according to SRK Consulting Director and Principal Consultant, Andrew van Zyl.

“We have been involved in the Test Mine project and are currently involved with Mine Health and Safety Council projects on collision control and rock safety,” Van Zyl said. “We are also doing pioneering geotechnical work in both the open pit and underground environment.”

He added that the company’s work on water management and mine closure also contribute indirectly to the general levels of improved safety in mining, as do its contributions to tailings dam management in and around mines.

Anglo’s remote multi-pass drill wins plaudits for work at Dawson coal mine

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Anglo American has been recognised for the development and testing of a world-first remotely operated multi-pass drill at its Dawson coal mine, with the company recently taking out the JCB CEA Innovation (Miner) Award at the 2020 Queensland Mining Awards in Mackay.

Driven by a commitment to make its open-pit operations safer by removing operators from the field, the team at Dawson produced the first known rotary blasthole drill rig to be able to complete multi-pass operations remotely.

General Manger of Anglo American’s Dawson Mine, Clarence Robertson, said the team had worked tirelessly over around 18 months to deliver the project.

“Our project team did an incredible job upgrading the (Sandvik) D90K drill rig by giving it a new control system and mechanical modifications,” he said. “This allows the drill rig to continually add and remove multiple drill rods during the drilling process without operator intervention, making it more efficient and consistent.”

He explained: “The drill can reach depths up to six times deeper than a standard single-rod drill, including angled and vertical holes, to reach the coal seams more easily.

“Most importantly, the innovation is improving safety by removing our people from an operational area where they could be exposed to noise, dust, vibrations and vehicle movements. They now work from a site office environment, where a remote operations centre has been setup for them to use new one-touch drilling technology.”

Robertson said the drill rig is now delivering beyond benchmark performance, and the operation is in the process of automating two more drill rigs in the next six months.

Tyler Mitchelson, CEO of Anglo American’s Metallurgical Coal business, said the project was a great example of the positive impacts innovation and technology can have on daily operations.

“The remote multi-pass drill is a strong demonstration of how technology, digitisation and remote operation can come together to make our operations safer, more sustainable and more productive.

“Congratulations to our team from Dawson Mine on their achievement, which has made a significant impact on the way we operate.”

Presented by the Bowen Basin Mining Club, in partnership with the Queensland Resources Council, the bi-annual Queensland Mining Awards recognise industry excellence across the categories of productivity, safety, innovation, environment, collaboration, product launch, community, staff engagement and equal opportunity initiatives.

Anglo American was also recognised as finalists the following Queensland Mining Awards categories:

  • Innovation Award (Miner):
    • Dawson Mine’s world-first remote multi-pass drill; and
    • Development of first electronic tablet device certified for use in underground coal mining.
  • Community/Staff Engagement Award:
    • Anglo American LIVE online concert series.
  • Equal Opportunity Award:
    • Moranbah North Mine’s Balancing the Team female trainee program.
  • Collaboration Award:
    • Mitchell Services/Anglo American for innovation in underground coal gas drainage UIS drill rig.

Miners can leverage Booyco PDS for wholesale safety improvements, Lourens says

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Centralising information from its proximity detection system (PDS) hardware and monitoring devices, Booyco Electronics says it offers mines a rare opportunity to become both safer and more productive.

According to Anton Lourens, CEO of proximity detection solutions focused Booyco Electronics, a single source of information on the mine’s assets is the key to enhancing operations by identifying patterns of unsafe behaviour.

“Our Booyco Electronics Asset Management System (BEAMS) is essentially a central information hub for the mine’s PDS assets,” Lourens says. “The software suite is a web-based application used on a robust database, linking the PDS hardware products and the monitoring devices.”

This provides a single source of data that can be leveraged for greater insight into relevant aspects of the mining operation – raising the level of safety and productivity in the workplace.

“The real achievement of BEAMS is that it allows the data from our Booyco CWS, Booyco PDS or Booyco CXS to be analysed for patterns which indicate unsafe behaviour,” Lourens says. “Customers can then design an appropriate intervention to prevent any further occurrences.”

This allows a mine to paint a complete picture of the working environment, shedding new light on operational issues previously not visible, Lourens said. Measuring the working environment and interactions in this way means risks and bottlenecks can be actively reduced and managed – boosting productivity as a result. This helps to give mines an in-depth view of the operation and the performance of their related assets.

“We have engineered BEAMS for easy implementation,” Lourens says. “It can be used on web browser platforms, and is designed to be adaptable to the information and infrastructure environment.”

BEAMS can also integrate with the lamp room management systems in underground mines, ensuring legal compliance with lamp room requirements. It helps mines locate its safety equipment, such as lamps, self-contained self-rescuers and gas instrumentation.

“BEAMS can be set up to suit the needs of each user,” Lourens says. “It can generate a standard set of reports, or be customised to specific requirements.”