Mining data to save lives in the mining industry
Sector: Mining
Location: Regional, National
While some sectors of the economy have gone soft, Australia counts on the mining industry as it enjoys unprecedented growth and high prices for its products. New opportunities emerge almost daily for mining companies to expand their reach for new deposits of minerals and metals.
Mining is a particularly capital and technology intensive activity, that operates in some of the most remote parts of the country. Safety is of paramount importance and it is critical that all personnel conform to strict security and safety guidelines.
To improve its safety record, and to find significant savings in time and money, one of Australia’s leading mining companies is undergoing a change in its maintenance procedures. While the change of itself may seem rather minor, its impact on the company’s regular maintenance schedules speaks volumes for the company’s pursuit of workplace improvements.
Shutting down plant and equipment at a mine site for maintenance is hugely expensive, so anything that can be done to improve the productivity of maintenance crews and minimise the downtime creates massive savings. The company estimates that saving just one minute for each maintenance task would save a major mine site up to $20 million a year in reduced downtime.
Challenges
Mining companies can face the following challenges:
- Isolation of equipment for repair, maintenance or cleaning at a mine site has always created several issues.
- Hand writing isolation tags is a time consuming process and legibility can be problematic.
- If equipment receives illegible or incorrect tags, it can become a major safety issue.
Solutions
Benefits
Testimonials
It doesn’t require any significant change management or any other major shift in mine practices to implement, but it makes a big difference to their operations in safety and time saved. That adds up to higher productivity for the company, and a lot of money saved.
Peter Hann
Lead Manager
Fuji Xerox Australia