Digitalization saves lives

What is the most precious asset of every company – no matter what vertical it is active in? Of course, it’s their employees. What sounds like an empty platitude that could be voiced by every other „Chief Happiness Officer“, is a very serious matter for many companies all over the world.

Let’s look at some plain figures: Every year more than 2.78 million people die because of occupational accidents or work-related disease according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Additionally, there are some 374 million non-fatal work-related injuries each year, resulting in more than 4 days of absences from work. The human cost of this daily adversity is vast, and the economic burden of poor occupational safety and health practices is estimated at 3.94 per cent of global Gross Domestic Product each year.

One of the verticals where employees are especially in danger of (fatal) accidents is the mining industry. Due to the nature of mineral extraction – literally drilling into the surface of the earth and sending humans into cavernous and potentially toxic spaces with heavy machinery and equipment – mining is an extremely dangerous job. With a death toll that reflects this. Even though the mining industry employs „only“ 1% of the global labour force, 8 % of all fatal occupational fatal accidents occur in the mining sector.

If we leave all ethical aspects aside for once, a German study concludes that the value of a statistical life for employees subject to social security contributions is 1.65 million euros. Of course, this financial aspect is only one of many why occupational health and safety are supposed to be one of the top priorities of every company. In the meantime, digitalization has become one of the core elements when talking about the improvement of worker’s safety.

Especially in the mining business digitalization is key. Huge working areas with many solo-workers make communication and location in case of an accident – when time matters most – difficult. This is where Asset or in this case People tracking comes into play as a means of security and safety. Additionally, to automatically tracking working times the […]

Customer Interview with Paulo Mery: Favendo’s Tracking Technology at Minera Antucoya in Chile

In 2020, Favendo established an asset tracking solution at Minera Antucoya in Chile with its partner iGO SpA, which optimizes processes with its technical solutions, in order to digitize and optimize data in the “last mile” of the production process.

After almost a year of using Favendo’s hardware & software at the Open Pit Mine in Chile and integrating it with iGO’s platform “igat” to measure productivity & utilization and track assets and people, it’s time to sum up. In an interview, Paulo Mery, Business leader at iGO, gave us an insight into his experience with Favendo’s tracking system and also talked about why he appreciates the cooperation with Favendo so much – despite the time difference between Germany and Chile.

Paulo can you give us a brief impression of what it is like for iGO to work with Favendo’s software?

“First of all, the ease of use of Favendo’s Commander and especially the ease of integration with third-party solutions should be highlighted. The platform allowed us to access and use it very quickly. Integrating Favendo’s technology with iGO’s productivity platform took no more than 2 or 3 weeks, thanks to Favendo’s open API. It was really easy to work with Favendo’s RTLS platform!”

Is there anything you’ve noticed about working with Favendo’s Commander that you’d like to change?

“Well, the only thing that would be really great is to have a Spanish user interface for future projects. So far, only we at iGo have used the Commander and we fortunately have no problems with English. Therefore, we could use the Commander without any problems. In the long term, however, we want to give the workers at Minera Antucoya the opportunity to use Favendo’s technology directly.

The problem is that the people who work in the mines in Chile usually don’t know English very well. This is simply because they often have limited access to education. So a Spanish user interface would be helpful for us.”

What do you appreciate about working with Favendo and were there any initial concerns?

“One thing that really stood out to us was Favendo’s response times. Whether we were in contact with James, Stefan or David, we always got an answer right away. So despite the time difference, we never had the problem of the project being stalled due to poor communication.

Whereby […]

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