Optimising Mining Operations with Telematics

All transport fleets across various industries, especially specialised industries like mining, have different challenges, needs, and constraints. From extraction to distribution, telematics can manage every aspect of a company’s assets.

The mining industry, like any other industry, has had to adapt to the emerging digital technologies that continue to dominate the world we live in today. The unique and complex environmental, regulatory, and safety considerations involved with managing a mining fleet present considerable challenges to the status and performance of every operator and asset, while continually streamlining operations, improving safety, increasing productivity, ensuring compliance, and meeting sustainability goals.

From extraction to distribution, telematics can manage every aspect of a company’s assets. This includes lighting towers or generators, right through to monitoring heavy vehicles like trucks, buses, and the state-of-the-art machinery used in mines.

Mining managers are focused on keeping assets and personnel safe, ensuring constant access to their entire fleet by regularly scheduling maintenance, achieving their green goals by lowering their carbon footprint, lowering their operational costs, and improving their bottom line. With these KPIs front of mind, MiX Telematics offers technology that advances mining capabilities, allowing companies to connect their business with a single, integrated platform that monitors equipment, assets, and fleet vehicles through vehicle and video telematics.

“All transport fleets across various industries, especially specialised industries like mining, have different challenges, needs, and constraints. A telematics system, therefore, needs to be flexible and sufficiently scalable.

Our tools help manage and integrate fleets of both manual and autonomous mining equipment, and we support you with our extensive telematics expertise. MiX Telematics solutions help mining companies get the most out of their fleets,” says Henry Smith, Fleet Sales Director for MiX Telematics Africa.

At MiX Telematics, we monitor the constant shifts in the mining industry and work to provide solutions that complement the needs of this key facet of our economy. We take learnings from our current customers within the mining industry to build and invest in bespoke solutions as they touch on key areas of concern which are also key pillars for our business. These areas include compliance, efficiency, security, safety, and sustainability.

The MiX Fleet Manager Premium online platform comprises of a sophisticated onboard computer that collects and transmits valuable vehicle and driver data. Driver behaviour, performance, fleet locations, engine diagnostics for preventative maintenance, and optimised route planning are tracked and monitored to aid mining operators in improving productivity and efficiency.

The solution also analyses a range of connected metrics in real-time, helping operators improve asset utilisation while reducing operating expenses. This pre-emptive information gives site managers full visibility of their operations, equipping them with data to continuously improve efficiency and performance. The platform captures driving events such as harsh braking, speeding, excessive idling, over-revving, and harsh cornering. These events are captured by the hardware, giving insight into driver behaviour negatively impacting the fleet’s energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Advancements in AI-powered technology allows for video telematics to be utilised in mining. The MiX Vision AI dashcam solution uses advanced machine learning to monitor risky driving behaviours and fatigue, which could lead to fatal accidents. The camera solution, coupled with the online platform, provides data and controls so that when incidents occur there is a trail of evidence to facilitate investigation, resolutions, and further corrective actions. The MiX Vision AI in-cab and road-facing cameras help prevent collisions, alert drivers to risky driving behaviour and save on insurance costs from wrongful claims against drivers.

Added to the camera solution is the MiX Vision Bureau Gold service which offers an eyes-on-screen service with key features such as the Driver Coaching Module, Driver Scorecard, and Risk Profile, which offers a view of driver trends to see improvements and spot declines in driver behaviour. It includes any outstanding coaching that the driver still needs to undergo for repeated offences to be avoided in the future. The service also has a Health Service which ensures uptime of all MiX Vision AI cameras with regards to hardware failure and driver tampering.

By using our solutions, customers have been able to report safer mines. On average, our customers see a 30% reduction in collisions. The ability to monitor unsafe driving behaviours and alert drivers and managers when dangerous driving events occur makes all the difference.

Moreover, MiX solutions lead to a significant reduction in operating costs — from maintenance, insurance, repairs, and fuel, these costs cut into already tight profit margins. Fleet telematics tools lower these costs by ensuring that drivers are accountable for their performance. In fact, a customer reported a monthly fuel saving of R66k by implementing the MiX Fleet Manager solution to monitor driver behaviour.

The mining sector is also particularly sensitive to the impact that operations can have on the environment, and it’s our objective to demonstrate the efficacy of telematics to improve the safety of employees on-site and to help companies reduce carbon emissions to achieve sustainability targets. We’ve helped our clients save as much as 540,000 tons of CO2 annually.

The launch of the new MiX KPI Manager is built to leverage MiX’s powerful embedded fleet data. MiX KPI Manager provides selfservice analytics that is fully customisable for customers - allowing them to visually track their performance on specific issues impacting their fleet’s risk, safety, efficiency, productivity, and sustainability. These solutions connect vehicles/ assets, protect the operator, and offer actionable insights for managers or owners. They can be used as standalone solutions or integrated with several solutions offered by MiX and bundled together with the solutions that offer video and audio-logged evidence for the business.

“The reporting dashboards and data provided by MiX Telematics solutions are vital to the daily operational decisions that businesses have to make. The active fleet data is used to detect trends, monitor vehicle utilisation and driver behaviour, as well as improve fuel consumption —considerations that have become even more important during the current economic climate,” continues Smith. “Additional benefits of telematics solutions in mining include optimised on-site communication, task and journey management, driver behaviour and performance monitoring, improved driver and employee safety, as well as improved site, vehicle, and asset safety.”

From a MiX Telematics perspective, the solutions offered are refined and developed continuously to meet customer demand. “As technology develops and becomes more accessible and affordable, the mining industry is realising the benefits and added value of telematics solutions,” concludes Smith.

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