Modern Mining October 2022

HEALTH AND SAFETY

South Africa has made a significant international contribution to mine safety through PDS, partly as a result of our current mining legislation making PDS mandatory under certain conditions. The pioneering work by local technology companies like Booyco Electronics is now raising increased interest abroad. The company already supplies PDS solutions to customers in Africa, Australia, South America and Europe. This interest is being spurred by the involvement of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) – representing the largest global mining firms. Since 2017, the ICMM has been involved in the Innovation for Cleaner, Safer Vehicles (ICSV) pro gramme. This initiative promotes collision avoidance technology, which can eliminate fatalities from vehi cle interactions, and the ICMM is working towards making this technology available to mining compa nies by 2025. “The most effective way for Booyco Electronics to share the benefits of PDS globally is through col laborative technology partners,” he says. “These partners, who include system integrators, understand their local markets, culture and values – making them best placed to meet international customer needs.” This approach aligns with Booyco Electronics’ view that any successful PDS roll-out must be well thought out and planned in detail. The scoping, implementation, management of change and inte gration of PDS is a complex and ongoing process, explains Lourens. “The supplier and customer need to approach this as a project, from investigation and selection to implementation and assessment,” he concludes. “Risk mitigation through PDS cannot be rushed, especially after a safety incident leading to a partial or total mine shutdown.” 

between safety and productivity,” he says. “If a PDS can ensure more certainty that people are not in a hazardous position relative to moving vehicles, then the whole operation can become more streamlined.” In this way, the customer can gain significant productivity from raising safety levels through PDS applications. As a case in point, the functionality of Booyco Electronics’ latest CXS versions give warn ings to operators and pedestrians to indicate the degree of hazard in the zone they occupy. Instead of just activating a single warning – say, a red-light warning – the CXS system can offer gradations of pedestrian warning. “This means that the warning can be green, yel low and finally red, which alerts a mine employee to increasing levels of risk – prompting an earlier response,” says Lourens. “The result is that produc tion is not hindered unnecessarily by a warning, but at the same time there is no compromise on safety standards.”

The data generated from PDS and CPS technology facilitates insight into a mining operation’s interaction.

22  MODERN MINING  October 2022