In mining and remote areas of resource industry, there has been a development towards lacking emergency medical first aid response, that creates a potential disadvantage for patients after work accidents and other medical emergencies compared to standard population. This is due to structural changes in mine rescue brigade coverage caused by transformation from formerly few major resource companies towards many ...
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Smart Safety: More Data Means More Safety
Digital gas monitoring with IoT platforms or automated device management via cloud software are potential milestones on the way to digitizing safety processes and generating new knowledge. Today, networked hardware systems and data platforms already offer more transparency about the condition of industrial plants and workplaces. These and other Smart Safety solutions can ensure safe, transparent and efficient operations in ...
Read More »Emergency Stop or Emergency Off? – That is the Question!
The red mushroom button on a yellow background is an important safety element on machines and mechanical equipment. In many places, the so-called emergency command device is labelled emergency off, although it is actually an emergency stop. But why is that? This article is a reprint from the BG RCI magazine, issue November/December 2022, pp 16 to 17. Why are ...
Read More »“You See the Issues that Are Important”
In 2017, the gypsum plant Uehrde, Rump und Salzmann GmbH & Co. KG, Osterode am Harz/Germany, carried out the risk assessment of mental stress for the first time. In 2022, the assessment was repeated. In the interview with Kristin Kramer, Dr. Ulla Nagel GmbH, Dresden/Germany, and Bernhard Kirchner, German Social Accident Insurance Institution for the Raw Materials and Chemical Industry ...
Read More »Mine Rescue for the Future Underground
Smart mining allows the industry to meet current and future challenges. The corresponding solutions include digital networking, automation and robotics. Mine rescue also benefits from this development – as well as from the further developments in functionality and ergonomics of established solutions such as closed-circuit breathing apparatus. The mine rescue team of the Swedish mining company Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB) may ...
Read More »Innovation on Suspended Monorail Locomotives for Underground Coal Mine Applications – a Project Overview
Suspended monorail locomotives are an important mining equipment for the transport of personnel and material in underground coal mines in Europe. A wide variety of diesel-driven or battery-electric locomotives are available. The EU-funded research projects BUSDUCT and HEET II conceptualized two alternative methods of electric power supply for suspended monorail locomotives. The BUSDUCT project envisions a suspended monorail locomotive that ...
Read More »A Contribution to the Reduction of Occupational Accidents with Mobile Vehicles in the Raw Materials Industry
Digitization is increasingly modifying all process levels in the raw material industry, starting from processes, in which the interaction between man and machine is becoming increasingly important to the management section. Despite the technological advances, the rate of accidents between vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-human has increased in the past few years. This drastic increase is due to a number of factors, ...
Read More »Playing Dangerously with Fire
The protective devices of a machine are intended to protect the persons working there from hazards. Nevertheless, these devices are repeatedly dismantled, bypassed or otherwise rendered inoperative. Occupational safety experts assume that around a quarter of all occupational accidents on stationary machines occur solely because of this. The German Social Accident Insurance (DGUV), Berlin, provides information and asks for assistance ...
Read More »Do You Actually Know … the BAUZ Info Cards?
Many tasks in the company are actually pure routine. Things like the regular inspection of work equipment, cleaning work on machines and systems or the use of forklift trucks are part of everyday work. To ensure that daily work is carried out safely and smoothly and that accidents do not result from carelessness, ignorance, convenience or time pressure, the German ...
Read More »New Contaminant Exposure Limits – and the Challenges this Poses for Taking Dust Measurements at the Workplace
Significantly lower air contamination thresholds have not only meant greater responsibility for employers in assessing the potential release of hazardous substances as part of the risk analysis and the health and safety documentation process but have also introduced higher standards for estimating exposure levels. One problem is that the performance limits of the measurement and analysis equipment make it difficult ...
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