Capital Equipment News May 2019

SAFETY

The road to PDS compliance

The South African mining fraternity has covered significant ground in the past 12 months when it comes to PDS development, OEM/PDS supplier collaboration and general end user education on the technology and related legislative requirements. One of the frontrunners in the PDS sector, Booyco Electronics shares some of the key developments thus far, writes Munesu Shoko .

T he Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) promulgated the use of proximity detection systems (PDSs), collision avoidance systems (CAS) and motion inhibitors on surface mines in February 2015. By now, every surface operation should have done its risk assessments on trackless mobile machinery (TMM) to determine their level of risk, and if significant, they should have installed suitable warning devices or proximity detection solutions. The deadline for collision avoidance systems was initially set for 2019, but industry has subsequently asked for this to be pushed to December 2020. What does the regulation say as far as the adoption of these technologies is concerned? The PDS needs to warn the driver that there is another person or machine in its proximity, which the mine itself must have identified as an unwanted event. Your risk assessment determines your adoption.

The regulation further says, if the driver of the vehicle does not respond to the warning, the vehicle needs to come to a slowdown and standstill (CAS). This is the part operations need to comply with, if your risk assessment and user requirement specification indicates the need. Initially there was reluctance and resistance in the industry to adopt these technologies. However, Anton Lourens, MD of Booyco Electronics, one of the frontrunners in the South African PDS sector, says a lot of ground has been covered over the past 12 months, with the industry, supply chain and the legislator collaborating to find solutions. Addressing key challenges Lourens says one of the key challenges was the lack of consistency among the PDSs initially available in the market. Lourens says there was a big disconnect between

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