With MaxMine Safety, high potential ramp speeding non-conformance can be identified and addressed in a timely manner, before they lead to potential adverse outcomes.
Brendan, Operations Superintendent Western Australian Mine
A MaxMine client sought to address a critical safety issue on site – haul trucks exceeding decline ramp speed limits. MaxMine’s implementation of a real-time notification system, built on customised live-datasets, allowed the client to promptly identify and address over speed non-conformance events before they could lead to potential adverse outcomes.
Site Management at a prominent gold mine in Western Australia were concerned that haul trucks were exceeding speed limits on ramps; a critical safety issue, further highlighted by a recent incident resulting in a fatality at another WA mine.
Aware of the high-potential safety implications, and the current lack of adequate operational controls in place, the client sought a solution that could help reduce the risks involved with overspeed events – as low as reasonably practicable.
At the time, the site had no accurate or easy way of flagging and tracking overspeed events (both loaded and empty) in real-time. The site operated a leading Fleet Management System, however limitations and ‘gaps’ remained in the system, particularly when it came to monitoring and responding to key operational safety controls in-shift.
What the site needed, was a best-practice solution that would automatically track and notify Site Supervisors when a ramp speeding event occurred, providing the means to actively address ramp speeding events within the shift – thus ensuring everything reasonably possible was being done, to safeguard site personnel. The solution therefore, wherever possible, needed to be real-time and free of human input.
MaxMine Application
MaxMine’s solution was to implement an automated over-speed monitoring and notification platform, built on MaxMine’s live-datasets. It’s just one potential application of MaxMine’s high-resolution data collection and reporting capability across a wide range that fall under MaxMine Safety.
MaxMine analytics can accurately assess and relay ramp speed information on a near-live (~30 minutes) basis – free from human input. For the client, MaxMine classified all ramp-speed events to the site’s operational rules for gear and speed limits; ensuring all equipment operators maintain critical safety limits, all speeding events that occurred during the shift were reported on and addressed.
Going one-step further, MaxMine implementation coaches worked with the client to develop a push-notification system that could action and address overspeed events in real-time, within-shift.
The notification platform is relatively simple; email notifications are sent to Site Supervisors when a ramp speeding event occurs, who then speak with the truck operators during their next break, allowing the issue to be addressed in a timely manner, before they can lead to more serious outcomes. These notifications include critical details such as truck ID, time of event and location of event.
Results
The project required implementation and change management support from mine site leadership to ensure its success. Once implemented, MaxMine Safety data showed an almost instant improvement in ramp overspeed events, with the number of daily ramp alerts reducing the longer the project continued.
Examining the data over an eight-week period, in the four weeks prior to the new system sending reports to the Operations team, there were a total of 456 reported ramp overspeed events. In the four weeks immediately following the implementation and reporting, that figure reduced to 52 total events with 11 days incurring no overspeed alerts.
This constituted an 84% reduction in the average daily overspeed ramp events, and a significant number of days not incurring overspeed ramp events.
Furthermore, a high number of speed-related events were identified and promptly addressed before they led to potential adverse outcomes. At an individual level, some operators that regularly incurred overspeeding events were seen to reduce to no speeding alerts once the project went live demonstrating that given trusted data, operators are able to self-regulate and are motivated to improve. In particular, ramp speeding while loaded saw the greatest immediate improvement.
In particular, ramp speeding while loaded saw the greatest immediate improvement. This provided site leadership with an opportunity to continue focusing and working with MaxMine on over-speed events when trucks were empty.
84%
reduction in the average daily overspeed ramp events
39%
of days with no overspeed ramp events
It’s been great working with the MaxMine team, the constant communication back and forward to tailor solutions to our needs and the quick turnaround to make changes or improvements is the biggest value we see.
Brendan, Operations Superintendent Western Australian Mine
Applicability to the industry and other sites
Ramp speeding is a critical safety issue that requires advanced operational controls to ensure the risks involved are as low as reasonably practicable. Preventing speeding events and high-potential incidents should be a key motivation for all sites, particularly in light of recent industry events.
Talk to MaxMine today for more information on this case study, and to discuss implementing similar safety systems at your site.