28 September 2018
Our Occupational Health and Information Management teams have worked in partnership to develop the Operational Intelligence Suite (OiS), a real-time data analytics platform that interrogates data feeds, manual uploads, and events.
The diagnostic results generated by the platform helps users make the right decision, at speed, when things go wrong, in terms of performance and health and safety at our mine sites.
That information is then used to do a ‘deep dive’ analysis, to get to the root cause of problems and prevent repeat occurrences.
“We developed OiS in-house in response to a growing need in the business,” said Cas Badenhorst, our Occupational Health and Hygiene lead. “Some of our key stakeholders needed a tool that would allow them to evaluate workplace and external environments and impacts on communities as well as monitor control performance.”
A global roll-out
The key difference between our OiS system and other, off-the-shelf, products is its ability to receive, record, and analyse data such as air flow, gas levels etc. from multiple sources on to a single platform that also has analytical and reporting capabilities.
OiS is already in place at several of our businesses including Anglo American Platinum, where potential exposure to health hazards is being significantly reduced by real-time monitoring of dust, noise, and gases.
In fact, application of the OiS platform has assisted the Rustenburg Base Metals Refinery (RBMR) team to achieve significant reductions in personal exposures to airborne pollutants within twelve months by optimising control measures.
When asked about the value contribution of the OiS platform, RBMR General Manager Fortune Mashimbye replied: “OiS informs me daily of health-related control performance and supplies me with data and information, so I can act on substandard conditions. Having access to real-time information on workplace conditions and control status empowers me and my team to actively protect the health of the RBMR employees”.
The system is currently being introduced at our Kumba Iron Ore business, Coal South Africa and Copper’s Chagres site in Chile. Further roll-outs are planned for Brazil and Botswana in 2019.
The next phase of development will include predictive analysis that could, potentially, prevent control failures and health and safety incidents from happening.
The system was recognised at 2018 USA National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) Awards, where it took the award for Technology Innovation in Health and Safety.
