• AFRICAN BUZZ
‘ HOW TO ENGINEER HUMAN FALLIBILITY OUT OF MINING IS THE CHALLENGE ’ mining environment is seldom forgiving of mistakes . Training and safety initiatives can only go so far . Mining companies spend millions of rands on safety training and awareness to ensure informed decisions and actions , but people bring their lives to work : fatigue , hunger , distractions and daydreams . How to engineer human fallibility out of mining is the challenge . Technology is advancing at a breath-taking pace . Mining companies must grasp the opportunities it presents to keep their employees safe and out of dangerous working places .
By the Minerals Council South Africa
Keeping mining operations safe and ensuring employees return home in good health after every shift is like sweeping water uphill – it ’ s an unrelenting effort . A momentary lapse of focus undoes all the good work , with dreadful consequences .
The Minerals Council South Africa has implemented an hour of learning on the first working day of every month for all its members ’ CEOs . The intention is to share experiences about what works and what does not , and , critically , learnings from events that have resulted in fatalities and injuries .
While interventions like this usually come during a crisis , the Minerals Council started the hour of learning in 2023 after the mining industry had recorded 49 fatalities last year , the best performance on record and one which returned the industry to its pre-COVID-19 trajectory on mine safety . In 2019 , the industry had 51 fatalities . However , the subsequent two years saw an alarming regression as work patterns , crews , and people ’ s personal lives were disrupted by the pandemic and lockdowns .
There are two significant achievements . January 2023 was the firstever without a fatality . January is traditionally a very difficult month for the mining industry as employees return from a lengthy yearend break and enter working areas that have been idle for a while . It is a remarkable milestone and one which underscores the industry ’ s goal of zero harm . It can be done .
The second major development was the decline in fatalities related to falls of ground ( FOG ). The industry had six fatalities in 2022 compared to 20 the year before .
FOG was a major contributor to the industry ’ s poor safety performance . Between 2001 and 2005 , an average of 111 people were killed annually by falls of ground . The industry has staged numerous interventions to address the problem and the focus has yielded results . Between 2016 and 2020 , the average number of fatalities fell to 24 a year but there is more to do to achieve a sustainable end-result of zero harm .
Japie Fullard , chair of the Minerals Council ’ s CEO Zero Harm Forum , points out how difficult it is to keep employees safe . After every single blast , the underground work environment is different and conditions have changed . Miners enter a new work environment after every blast , with fresh risks and challenges that must be addressed to ensure safety . Technology is playing an increasingly important role in assisting miners to assess their work environment , identifying risks and resolving them .
Alexander Pope in his Essay on Criticism published in 1711 notes : “ To err is human .” Humans are fallible . Unlike a divine being , the
Part of technology adoption is the inclusion of employees on the journey to ensure the interventions are pragmatic and user-friendly . People are not great in dealing with change , particularly if they consider the change a risk to their employment . The mining industry has a legacy of a deep trust deficit . Collaboration and honest , inclusive engagements with organised labour , employees and the regulator about the safety journey are vital on this journey towards zero harm . It can only be achieved together .
AFRICA SEES SPIKE IN DEMAND FOR CLOUD-BASED SERVICES
The data centre market in Africa is growing by 15 % year-on-year . While the installed base across the continent is relatively small , there has been a massive growth spurt , according to Werner Schneeberger , Data Centre lead for Middle East and Africa at infrastructure firm AECOM .
Werner Schneeberger , Data Centre lead , Middle East and Africa , AECOM .
The sector presents significant opportunities , especially as more companies require cloudbased services and solutions . However , at present the installed capacity across Africa is about 300MW , compared to a typical European city like Frankfurt with 500MW installed capacity . South Africa accounts for 75 % of the data centre infrastructure on the continent .
He says , “ We lag far behind in providing installed capacity for businesses to migrate to the cloud .” Issues include political instability , endemic corruption and an unpoliced regulatory environment . In addition , there is a lack of suitable infrastructure across the continent , from power generation to terrestrial broadband fibre networks . Hence the main data centre developments in Africa tend to be concentrated where the subsea internet cabling infrastructure lands .
AECOM has been involved with major data centre projects in South Africa since 2017 , on the back of its US connections with major players such as Amazon Web Services , Google and Microsoft .
“ Edge type data centres are increasingly prevalent in Africa due to their modularity and compactness .”
AECOM
4 • African Mining • May 2023 www . africanmining . co . za