While preparing to hit the show floor at the Washington State Convention Center on February 24-27, check out some more of the event's exhibitors.

3M

Visibility player 3M wants to educate end users and safety officers on the importance of wearing the right amount of reflective material and replacing the reflective material on garments when it reaches the end of its lifespan.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration took a significant first step in June, publishing a recommendation for wearing reflective clothing to ensure higher visibility.

While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, the following measures are a useful guide for workwear selection to make sure garments are compliant, safe and durable.

• Remember that the amount of reflective material makes a difference. The general rule is “the more reflective material the better”
• Know a garment’s expected lifetime, laundry and work duty cycles. If a garment has been laundered and reflective components show signs of excessive wear or destruction, consult an industrial launderer who can help determine when a garment’s life span ends and when reflective material should be replaced; and
• Source products from a trusted industry provider.

Joy Global

Joy Global will once again have a prominent presence at the SME annual meeting and exhibition in Denver. In addition to its exhibition booth, mining application engineering manager Scott Shields will chair a session at 2pm on February 27 entitled Technology Applications for Safety in Mining and Mining Equipment.

As part of this session, the company’s continuous miner product director Brian Thompson will take the podium to present Operator Assist Technology for Advanced Dust and Noise Mitigation and Obstacle Avoidance in Underground Mining.

Global regulations continue to drive change in the operating environment. Key areas of focus center around dust, noise and proximity detection.

Joy has recently tested and released systems to assist operators in meeting or exceeding these regulatory proposals.

Thompson will review testing, validation and implementation of these technologies in pursuit of Zero Harm.

Additionally, Joy Global remote health monitoring program manager Anubhaw Bhushan will be discussing Behavior and Performance Analysis Using PreVail.

Remote health monitoring technology collects and screens large amounts of machine health and performance data on P&H electric shovels. The technology has proven to greatly reduce the amount of time required to determine root causes of traditionally complex and time-consuming electrical drive and control systems issues for faster resolution and return to productive operation.

P&H PreVail RHM helps optimize machine performance, which in turn leads to production enhancements, maintenance optimization and help determine and refine unsafe operating practices.

Flexco

This year Flexco’s SME spotlight will be on its chutes.

The company is solving transfer point challenges with its Tasman Warajay technology.

These systems improve throughput while reducing excessive dust, spillage, plugging, downtime, belt wear and combustion dangers.

Flexco specializes in assessing transfer point needs, modeling data to accurately predict material trajectories and designing solutions to accommodate future load volume fluctuations.

It uses Tasman Warajay technology to develop custom solutions for material handling operations.

Tunnel Radio

Tunnel Radio is coming to the show floor this year with spotlights on two of its products.

First, enterprises utilizing local area networks can take advantage of Tunnel Radio’s MineAx RFID wireless tracking technology through the use of the new Ethernet reader.

Plugged into any Ethernet or fiber port, the product allows continual tracking of widely dispersed personnel and equipment in multiple locations on, under or above the ground.

Like the company’s digital leaky feeder readers, the Ethernet LAN product utilizes proprietary software that can be interfaced with networked computers.

This allows more timely and fully informed operational decision-making from virtually anywhere the customer chooses to conduct business.

The Ethernet reader is sold in two options: one requiring no additional power supply beyond that provided by the Ethernet cable itself (POE), and another equipped with a 9 volt plug-in.

Additionally, with Tunnel Radio’s easily installed Integrated Amplifier, operators can add tracking capabilities to existing UHF or VHF digital leaky feeder communications systems without the need for additional components or supplemental power sources.

Part of the company’s MineAx wireless tracking system, the Integrated Amplifier consists of an amplifier with antenna, and a reader that relays date-stamped location data and other “tag” information to surface computers.

The units can be adapted to existing leaky feeder systems, or integrated into an all-in-one Tunnel Radio communications/tracking/gas sensing solution.

In either case, Tunnel Radio’s advanced software is included.

The software’s remote-access monitoring capabilities allow problems in the leaky feeder network to be precisely and instantaneously located.

As designers and manufacturers of underground radio and digital data systems since 1988, Tunnel Radio backs its products with 24/7 technical support.

Staff are on hand to confirm that the equipment is functioning properly and to assist customers in making optimal use of its capabilities.

Check back all this week for more ILN coverage of the SME 2013 preview.