All employees must possess the correct compliances, such as licenses and permits, to be working on site. Engaging employees who are certified to do their jobs minimises the susceptibility of your company facing damaging penalties and fines. Managing your employees’ compliances can be a time-consuming task that is easy to overlook or lose track of but is essential to ensure you are maintaining a safe and compliant working environment.
Leveraging technology is an effective approach to managing compliances for all employees and they also work to ensure you, as a company, are upholding stakeholder and environmental obligations. Compliances work to increase employee productivity, engage stakeholders, improve company-wide visibility, and protect from accidental damage to the environment. Here are 5 reasons why technology improves compliance in mining.
1. Safer working conditions for employees
Technological advancements can improve safety. Data analytics tools, for instance, allow mining operators to better predict outcomes and prevent dangerous incidents from occurring. Workforce tracking instruments also help operators coordinate their employees and contractors more efficiently. For example, warn them not to go into certain areas of the site if there has been an incident. Smart mines, whose key assets are digitised through sensors that relay data to a central system, on or offline, massively reduce the possibilities for human harm in mining processes in the long-term. This, in turn, diminishes the rate of mining incidents by using new technologies as a primary analysis and maintenance tool. By increasing the level of digital processes in place at your mine site, your workers can easily be monitored and tracked to ensure they are following protocol and adhering to new safety standards brought in by the introduction of technology.
2. Enhancing enterprise-wide communication and visibility
Software platforms have the capacity to deliver real-time analytical and operational data across the entire workforce instantly. Notifications of any changes, updates, or incidents can be clearly communicated across teams to prevent miscommunication or misconduct. Without the support of technology, if an incident occurred, it might take a significant time before the news is appropriately shared across the business. This increases the risk of the incident escalating and affecting more people than necessary. With digital procedures in place to instantly track and monitor an incident or any changes or updates to operations, there is an increased chance of containing the associated risks. Communication across the board is essential to the development and progression of your company. Stakeholders and employees will have all the information they need, delivered to them within seconds which can ensure they have the tools they need to practice compliance when on site.
3. Creates predictability
According to MicroMine, it’s estimated that less than one percent of all data collected by existing mining technology is used. This is due to the inability to process and present data in real-time. Software automation can make this data more useful to investors and stakeholders by providing more information across the board. Mining, by nature, is unpredictable. Conditions change over the course of a mine’s life. Intelligent software automation takes the guesswork out of adjustments, avoiding production slowdowns and mitigating costs. With improved technology to enforce miner accountability and future planning, there is an increased chance that operations will be run compliantly and effectively.
4. Supports environmental conservation
Implementing software technology that can monitor the environment around you and the resulting impact of the work you are doing is essential to ensure you are adhering to all regulations and laws that are specific to your operations. By ensuring you are keeping track and monitoring the land you are situated on, your company is actively working to comply with environmental compliance and protection.
5. Monitors operational assets
Wireless monitoring and predictive maintenance enabled through software solutions, allow mining operators to monitor operational assets remotely and constantly, to make sure they are not damaged. Real-time data capturing is gradually replacing manual readings of critical operational data which means operators can continuously monitor changes to operations and the environment and protects their key assets and consequently their workers from imminent harm.
