Harvie, previously marketing manager for the Rutherford group of companies, said an important part of his new role will be to expand the company's existing services into underground coal and hard-rock sectors.

Datem Moore offers services in project management, engineering, design, control systems and instrumentation, training and technical services. In the coal sector, Datem Moore has been involved in the design and commissioning of mine infrastructure projects, coal preparation plants, materials handling systems, upgrades and overhauls of drag-lines and haulage trucks, and in underground coal, designing and fabricating belt starters equipped with variable speed drives and fully automated control systems.

A new area of focus for the group is to provide support services in the form of mining engineering, mine management services, identification of opportunities for improvement in operating and maintenance methods as well as plant modeling and optimisation studies.

The company's computing & IT services division specialises in a range of services including computing hardware and networking, information processing and data transfer, optimisation and decision analysis, and computer training. Recently the group released its Datem Link software, for application in underground coal mines.

Harvie said Datem Link provided the person with statutory responsibilities with a new tool that coordinates the mine safety management system with the operational and technical specifications of plant & equipment required to operate the mine.

"This simplifies the creation of an audit trail that demonstrates effective self checking of the safety management plan and will be expanded to include the NIOSH best practice recommendations for programmable electronic mining systems," Harvie said.