According to a report authored by GlobalData, wearable technology has a significant role to play in the mining sector of the future. The following are some of the notable reasons why every mining company needs to incorporate some form of wearable technology in its operations.
Aiding the fight against COVID-19
Workers in mining operations often have to work in close proximity to one another, and this could help the coronavirus spread easily among those workers. Wearable tech can help to manage this risk by making it possible to enforce social distancing rules, monitor the temperature of employees, trace contacts of people found to be infected and even enable the surveillance of patients.
Firms need to think creatively about how to protect the privacy of the people who have these wearables as well as finding means to secure the data stored in the cloud.
Injury prevention and employee safety
In mining, employees are often working in less-than-ideal environments, and the presence of heavy machinery compounds the safety risks mining employees face.
Wearable technology, whether in the form of hard hats with sensors or even sensors that can be placed on the clothing of workers, can help to alert supervisors that a certain employee is getting dangerously close to a moving component of heavy machinery or that they have been injured and need immediate help.
In this way, the technology can help to avert safety incidents as well as facilitate timely intervention in case an accident occurs.
Equipment inspection and monitoring
Mining equipment malfunctions can be costly to companies. both in terms of the direct costs of undertaking repairs and the productivity losses while the equipment is out of service. Onsite experts can be given wearable technology so that, in the event that a major defect develops, offsite experts can access the real-time data collected by the wearable technology and then use that data to provide the support needed at the mining site.
Without such a system, it is costly both in terms of time and money to transport experts to a remote worksite where out-of-service equipment requires expert attention.
The wearables can also help in preventive maintenance and monitoring so that problems are resolved before they become major defects. In this way, equipment downtime is minimized.
Resource tracking
Another useful application of wearable tech is in tracking the location of mining company employees at all times. Wireless connectivity and RFID tags can be used to remotely monitor the real-time whereabouts of employees, especially when an accident occurs and time is of the essence as efforts to assist lost or injured workers are underway.
The range of possible benefits of wearable technologies in nearly endless, and it is no wonder that there is fast adoption of these technologies.
Safety concerns have always taken center stage in everything mining firms do, so it wouldn’t be surprising to find that the subject of wearable technology isn’t new to sector players such as Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU) (TSX: EFR).
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE American: UUUU) (TSX: EFR) are available in the company’s newsroom at http://ibn.fm/UUUU
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