BUSINESS
STOPPING DEATHS ON QUARRIES
Proximity detection system( PDS) is the culmination of years of efforts to reduce fatalities on quarry and mine sites.
By Eamonn Ryan
So far, South Africa is the only country in the world to have legislated a level 9 collision management system. It is a stateof-the-art system which is at draft phase to become law for all surface mines and quarries from end-2020.
Ettiene Pretorius, Electronic Safety Systems( ESS) business unit manager at Schauenburg Systems, says the move is a response to the many fatalities that have steadily increased over the past few years. There has been little improvement regarding the safety record of mobile equipment. The Department of Mineral Resources( DMR) gave an ultimatum to the industry to reduce fatalities using humanbased risk mitigation tools( levels 1 to 6) or it would raise the bar using regulations.“ Levels 1 to 6 involve non-technology measures such as traffic lights, segregating people and vehicles, and more. But risk assessments on sites have shown that there are still scenarios involving an unacceptable level of risk, and so technological solutions at levels 7 to 9 became necessary.”
Under the Mine Health and Safety Act, regulation 8.10, level 7 was introduced. This is a warning system that unfortunately has also failed to reduce the fatality level and consequently, the government has set about imposing compulsory level 9 safety measures from 2020.
Pretorius explains why level 7 on its own is insufficient: the warning system involved alarms to compel drivers to stop when there was a significant risk, but due to a number of false alarms and / or no consequences, this led drivers and pedestrians to ignore alarms and fatalities continued— in fact, after an initial reduction in fatalities, it again increased last year.
Eamonn Ryan
Ettiene Pretorius, ESS business unit manager at Schauenburg Systems.
“ The final specifications of the level 9 system have not been signed off yet, but a deadline has been set for the introduction of level 9 by no later than the end of 2020, for all underground and surface mining. What level 9 PDS introduces to the system is a signal to a control system or vehicle OEM to slow down or stop the vehicle in proximity to danger,” says Pretorius. There are currently as many as 30 suppliers on the market selling level 7 systems, many of which are newcomers to the PDS market. Many of these offer limited support or R & D and therefore have no intention of ever becoming level 9 compliant. Pretorius warns buyers of PDS systems to not simply look at the cheapest solutions, but to consider how they will be supported to comply with future regulations; that is, level 9.
He says this is arguably the case with quarries even more so than mines.“ Quarries are low-margin operations that have the same standards of regulation as higher-margin mines, which makes acquiring these solutions more challenging.”
A caution when buying
He urges anyone buying a system at the moment to make sure to get a guarantee from their supplier to say the system is capable of being upgraded to level 9 compliance by the cut-off date and that they are committed to doing so— or offer a refund.“ Otherwise, they will have to pay for a new system, effectively paying twice. They will have to dispose of their current system.”
Few suppliers are yet compliant. Pretorius says that about five suppliers have a system compliant for underground mining, but currently only one company is compliant for surface mining.“ Seven or eight companies( including Schauenburg) are presently developing a level 9 system, and the industry is working to a roadmap under the authority of the Minerals Council South Africa, which
10 _ QUARRY SA | SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2018