Open Cut » Health and Safety
Multiple industry articles, studies and mining OH&S statistics show that removing, handling and reinstallation and other maintenance activities involving heavy vehicle tyres, particularly from haul trucks and large wheel loaders, continue to be one of the most hazardous activities performed on a mine site.
To reduce the potential for injury and fatalities, a real-time tyre and rim maintenance safety monitoring system was installed at a large mine in central Queensland, which successfully identified unwanted deviations in compliance related to tyre maintenance activities, including tracking individual pieces of equipment, tyres, and people. The so-called EYECUE™ Industrial system also includes an adaptable design that can be extended to various use cases, making it versatile and effective in helping change unwanted behaviours and promoting compliance to formal procedural requirements. It has also been designed to quickly and accurately identify any activity related to tyre maintenance, including recognising, and understanding different tyre handling activities. Additionally, the system has undergone extensive development using advanced Machine Learning techniques, allowing it to differentiate between different objects within the camera's field of view and quickly react to potential behavioural deviation issues if they occur. Furthermore, the system includes a user-driven review section, enabling alerts to be generated that are relevant to the team and scenario being monitored. This monitoring technology has the potential to be adapted for use on a wide range of operational scenarios where workers drift from expected behavioural compliance, making it an effective tool to enable timely and effective management intervention to lower the potential for an unwanted exposure event when changing large vehicle tyres.
The trial was conducted in collaboration with project C33005 Human Factors Aspects of Tyre Handling Equipment Design and Operation Examined using the EMESRT Control Framework approach. Important insights around how and why humans act during this activity from this study has been used in defining the alerts, hazardous zones and potential changes to procedures that do not reflect effective practices.