Abstract
Interactions between people and mobile equipment is a leading cause of fatalities in the mining industry. 2023 Year-to-date the Mine, Safety and Health Administration has reported 38 fatalities with over 25% of them due to mobile equipment. How do we improve this performance? Having everyone wear high visibility workwear or mandating seat belt use has not made much of a difference. New technologies are available but how do you select the right one that will be accepted by your organization? How do you know how well the systems that have been developed to protect people are being followed? How many times will someone not comply when no one is watching? Supervisors are not able to continuously monitor compliance to these critical controls.
dss+ has created a strategic alliance with Pacefactory to introduce their image analysis AI software to the mining industry. In our talk we will demonstrate how video analysis can quickly identify near misses and provide data on how well mitigation strategies are reducing the risk. The system has the ability to “ghost” employees so that they will not be identified in the video. The system can also be used to monitor compliance going forward. All that is required is a mount for the camera and access to the wifi system. This system can be easily relocated to other locations. A camera monitoring a critical intersection can provide video footage that can be analyzed in minutes to provide information such as how many times a pedestrian get too close to a piece of operating equipment, how many times did two pieces of equipment get too close to each other, how many times a vehicle did not stop at an intersection, seat belt compliance, and more. By using this technology you can get a much better understanding of the level of compliance within your organization. This information can be used to develop communication programs to increase the level of compliance and to continuously monitor compliance.
Ward Metzler