Mining sector solutions provider Expert Mining Solutions and Australia-based fatigue monitoring technology company SmartCap Technologies started their relationship in 2012 after concluding a distribution agreement for sub-Saharan Africa.
It was sooner rather than later that Expert Mining Solutions, under the leadership of CEO and founder Ronald Venter, known for his work with collision avoidance in the South African mining sector, landed Assmang, in Northern Cape, as its first customer, deploying the SmartCap fatigue solution, Life, across the mine site’s entire fleet, which still marches on five years later.
In the interim, Expert Mining Solutions has secured additional sites that included various Rio Tinto mining operations and transport companies.
“We realised how important it was to us to get people home safe every day and set up SmartCap South Africa, a wholly owned level 2 broad-based black economic-empowerment company, with a Smart centre based in Witbank. We are well supported by Dr Andre Van Jaarsveld and Aron Ranape from BSS Africa Fatigue Solutions,” the company explains.
With this mix in place, Expert Mining Solutions has also secured Anglo Thermal Coal as a client.
The company is also involved with many demonstrations at various mines and actively compiling scope and risk matrix studies for its clients.
THE PROBLEM
The mining environment is a harsh and unforgiving workplace. Machine operators are constantly exposed to extreme weather conditions and difficult workplace scenarios. The work is demanding and, when working on multimillion-dollar machinery, operators need to be focused and alert at all times when doing precision work, with mines aiming to get everyone home safe everyday.
However, long working hours, disruptive sleeping patterns, unhealthy diets and many underlying medical conditions can cause fatigue to easily slip into the workplace.
When an operator is not fully alert and focused, a momentary lapse in judgment can result in serious injuries, damage to vehicles, or end in tragic death. Although machines never get tired and can work around the clock, it is humans that operate the machinery. Machine operators can quickly suffer from fatigue resulting in impaired vision, poor judgment and slow reaction times.
THE SOLUTION
For this reason, SmartCap developed Life, a system to manage fatigue in the workplace.
The system uses cutting-edge technology to measure an operator’s resistance to sleep. It is proactive rather than reactive and alerts the operator to his/her level of fatigue using a 94.7% accurate electroencephalogram measurement.
Life not only acts as an early warning system but also captures data that can later be analysed to identify operators who continuously suffer from high levels of fatigue. These operators will then undergo medical examinations, or be rehabilitated to combat fatigue in their lives.