FATIGUE MANAGEMENT
SmartCap works anytime , anywhere , including on the drive home after a shift ends
CRCMining . The SmartCap was first made commercially available through SmartCap Technologies ( formerly EdanSafe ) in 2013 . Bongers then served as the Chief Technology Officer for SmartCap and since the acquisition as Director of Technical Sales , Safety Systems at Wenco .
So , what has being part of Wenco brought to SmartCap ? Bongers told IM : “ There is greater positivity and momentum than ever before within the teams working with the SmartCap product suites under Wenco . Some of that is due to
Wenco ’ s size , global reach and technological diversity . They have a lot of projects in many global regions – and having SmartCap in the mix means access to more developers with more insights and ideas .” Bongers adds : “ The specific drivers at this point include a definite push for fatigue management from the fleet management system side where the FMS buy-in from customers is generally from a traditional bid and tender type of approach . More and more of these tenders are specifically asking what you have or offer in this space for fatigue and is that fatigue solution integrated with the Fleet Management System ( FMS )?”
He argues that today people are seeing the FMS , whether that be WencoMine or not , as the technology hub in the truck , as part of a general move towards more in-cab technology integration and avoidance of too many systems and screens . This also needs to be balanced by back-end integration . “ With all these sources of data in one place , fatigue data being one of them , there are far richer insights that a business can put together . For example , if you start overlaying some of your fatigue related data with cycle times and productivity metrics that are coming out of your FMS .”
SmartCap is very much FMS agnostic , however . With about a third of installations working with WencoMine , the other two-thirds work with other FMS , whether Cat Minestar ,
Hexagon OP Pro , Modular Dispatch or something else . “ Mines are looking at the application business case mainly with the fatigue system – they get the differences between the systems and generally will not select the fatigue system based on whether it is linked to a particular FMS supplier – they will select it based on what works for them and their procedures .”
Bongers says from the prospective customer side , that if the miner is investing in the latest incab sophisticated technology with a computer and a screen , what else can they leverage from that investment besides the core FMS capability ? He also sees a strong push from mining houses towards dealing with a smaller list of high quality vendors – a single contact point for the supply and support of key technologies , so if they can work with an FMS supplier that also has a fatigue solution - like Wenco - then that is preferable to dealing with lots of separate entities . The same applies to CAS and proximity detection just as it does to fatigue . “ These things are not yet in the mandatory tenders list , but more under valuable features and capabilities . Plus is the integration of the technologies completed and if not , where does that integration sit on your roadmap ? The FMS they are investing in represents a long term investment – 5 to 10 years minimum – they want in the next 3-5 years the ability to roll in the CAS and fatigue safety solutions from the same vendor or if that isn ’ t possible , some kind of agnostic integration with other technologies .”
Considering the different fatigue management options then , what makes SmartCap stand out ? “ I think I would highlight several aspects . Anywhere , anytime is important – as the wearable device in our solution goes wherever you go – so you can download the app yourself and use it on the drive home from the mine , plus you can use it over the weekend during your break . The commercial model means that a mining client provides a layer of safety coverage for the operator on and off site . Consider an operator getting many fatigue alarms towards the end of a night shift , but the mine is not FIFO , and they can just drive home unprotected , where no site rules apply . The SmartCap LifeBand means they are still protected and if fatigue alarms have been issued the mine can ask them to keep wearing the LifeBand on their journey home .”
The LifeBand head wearable sends fatigue levels by low energy Bluetooth to an in-cab screen . “ When that screen has access to a network it sends that data to the Cloud and realtime dashboards in the dispatch room etc . When you go offsite and take the LifeBand with you , continue to wear it on the journey home but the data now goes to your smartphone app , and when you get home , you can recharge the LifeBand .”
When it comes to fatigue management , buzzwords like ‘ actionable intervention ’ and ‘ predictive monitoring ’ are thrown around a lot , but what do they mean ? In our discussion , Bongers argued that in fatigue management timing is everything . Reactive cameras , on one side of the timing scale , are useful in detecting sleep at which point the urgent action required relies on an impaired operator . Once a microsleep occurs , it ’ s often too late , the hazard has already happened . “ A microsleep , depending on what jurisdiction you are working in is often a reportable incident based on uncontrolled vehicle movement . We believe that is too late to act . When you wake a person from a microsleep , the choices that they can make , and the reactive options they have are less than ideal . The risk is already present , and the operator often only has the option to mitigate the hazard , not eliminate it .”
At the other end of the scale , you have fatigue predicting practices . While effective at providing data , Bongers argues that this data is often inaccurate , making managing shifts around these forecasts difficult , often to the point of detriment to productivity . “ These practices consider a range of factors , many of which are self declared by the operator . But people tend to not accurately report things like their weight , how much water they have drunk , and their activity history . So , to provide a fatigue forecast for many hours ahead based on that , we believe is still problematic . What does a shift boss do with a driver at 7am about to start a 12-hour shift , when the predictive fatigue system says they will be impaired at 3pm ? You can ’ t tell them not to work that day , and can you tell them to stop at 3pm ? It ’ s difficult to use this type of information and feel you are still getting the most out of your equipment and people whilst still trying to manage safety .”
Bongers says LifeBand sits in the middle of reactive and predictive – it doesn ’ t rely on self reporting , it is measuring fatigue at the source , as the fatigue reporting is directly monitoring the state of the brain . That greater accuracy , he says has been proven with independent scientific validations . It is a proactive solution aimed at empowering operators and businesses to manage fatigue in real-time . By measuring fatigue at the source , accurate and actionable information allows individuals to take simple preventative actions .
And it is the type of actionable information being provided – “ an early warning alert where
70 International Mining | JANUARY 2023