TopVu® Increases Mine Safety with eTag Board

 Fri, Sep 28th 2018

Underground  mining is considered by many to be a dangerous occupation. Mine operators face many daily challenges relating to production and  safety.

One of the daily challenge  faced by mine  X is to record who is in the mine at any time.  The ‘Tag in / Tag out” procedures used in Mine X works and has remained relatively the same over the years. Every person entering the underground operation must ensure they have placed their personal tag on the tag board before going underground. As an additional check and balance, the supervisor is to check the tag board to confirm the tags on the board match the supervisor’s assignment list. Mine X also use central blasting. The supervisor in charge of the central blast has the responsibility to ensure the tag board is cleared and that everyone has been accounted for before allowing the blast. Circumstances where individuals failed to tag resulted in delays in blasting and safety concerns.

HOW

The TopVu® eTag® board designed for surface and underground use is simple in that we do not change processes or the way things are done. We enhance it with a whole new set of results for mine operators. Supervisors and health and safety.

Existing “TAG in / Tag out” board are retrofitted or replaced with the TopVu® eTag® board providing realtime, historical, remote visualization of the board at a click of the mouse on our HMI . TopVu® tracks the position of personal tags and stores the data into an SQL data base.. Real time and historical information from the data base can be viewed in pre-packaged screens and reports via the TopVu® HMI or simply accessed in a spreadsheet format. Options for additional check and balances with the addition of Readers strategically located in the mine (choke points) further enhancing plant safety and emergency response can also be integrated as part of the system. This additional readers can communicate using existing infrastructure such as Leaky Feeder reducing the cost and time to implement.The TopVu® eTag® Board requires no training, no change in processes or worker behavior. The TopVu® eTag® Board is our level 1 entry into tracking for safety and increased operational efficiency affordable to mines of all sizes