The easily carried, Windows Mobile unit is the first US Mine Safety and Health Administration-compliant safety personal protection equipment inspection and tracking solution.
It provides barcode scanning for data collection by inspectors as well as for production reporting, maintenance, training videos and other types of mobile mining applications.
One of the most popular capabilities to date has been self-contained self rescuer inspections. In fact, according to the company, there are approximately 30,000 SCSRs currently underground that are being inspected with the Safety Tracker.
Because the unit runs on a Windows operating system, the user-friendly interface allows for many capabilities people are already familiar with, such as the Microsoft word processing, spreadsheet and email programs, a camera, cellular capabilities, GPS, wireless 802.11 a/b/g and more.
“[It’s] basically putting a rugged mobile computer in miners’ hands replacing the need for a laptop,” Snively vice president Justine Blank said.
“We have found that when it comes to data collection, the mining industry has often times been left in the dark.
“We have empowered miners by developing a handheld mobile application that replaces all manual ‘paper and pencil’ methods of capturing and reporting … at each mine site.”
The Safety Tracker was first developed in 2006 in response to new regulatory standards laid out by MSHA, and the beta version was delivered to its lead development partner and customer.
Since then, the units have made their way into many US coal operations, and meanwhile Snively has been working in tandem with the industry, MSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to develop the solution to provide safety compliance as well as automation.
Blank said that, for those who have made the Safety Tracker part of their regular regime, government fines have been reduced and miner safety has increased through mines’ increased accuracy in safety reporting and federally-mandated quarterly self-contained self rescue compliance.
The handheld also reduces errors often made in manual data collection, as well as offering instant visibility of results for safety inspectors, a more rapid compliance reporting time, and easy realization and location of mining assets.
Use of the unit is also easy. Once the machine generates a barcode using the Windows Mobile barcode hardware, it can process those codes when scanned and immediately update a mine’s system.
Additionally, import wizards can be used to upload existing equipment databases to the Safety Tracker platform, thus eliminating any data entry from miners.
Operations also need not worry about networking the handhelds as the system is fully contained and can run as a stand-alone application or can operate in “real time mode” as a device on any standard 802.11 wireless network.
At the end of the day, Safety Trackers can be placed on a dock to recharge, though Blank noted that the long-life lithium battery will perform for a 10-12 hour shift and the unit has a spare battery that is user-replaceable in the field.
For users that need an introduction to or a refresher on the operating platform, Snively offers on-site and classroom training that provides a hands-on experience and includes technical overview training for information technology staff as well.
“Updates are free with software maintenance and are delivered via a ‘click once deployment’,” Blank said.
“Every time the application is opened at our customer sites, it polls our server for any updates/enhancements and then gives the user the opportunity to accept or not take the newest updates, thus eliminating the need for downloading, firewall/spam issues, out-of-sync or multiple version [problems].”
Snively plans to extend Safety Tracker outside of the US to obtain international approval standards approvals including IEC and Atex, and is currently partnering with several hardware manufacturers to obtain an MSHA-permissible handheld.
