24 JULY 2017
Our Coal mining operations have both full time and volunteer Emergency Response Teams.
Our coal mining operations in South Africa have both full time and volunteer Emergency Response Teams (ERT), with the volunteers drawn from the wider workforce. When they are required, our volunteer ERTs might be anywhere on the large site, so knowing where they are at all times can be a great help.
At our Wolvekrans Colliery and Coal Processing Plant, our volunteer ERT members worked with permanent fire and rescue paramedics and others to develop an ‘app’ which uses the Mining Execution System (MES). MES is a reporting platform that takes information from a range of sources, and integrates it so that it can be used to calculate, distribute and display data in various forms. The clever ERTs at Wolvekrans have adapted it so that the skills, special qualifications, call out history and, importantly, the availability of every volunteer and full time fire and rescue paramedics can be accessed during an emergency.
Our ERTs update their status, location and availability every day, and if they forget to do so a reminder is automatically sent to their phone. The ‘app’ ensures that in an emergency the right team members can be found and sent to the site of the problem quickly. It’s a communication tool that will reduce response times, and more than likely save lives.
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