KGHM taps BC start-up to help manage mine worksite

Visualization: Managers will be able to see the location of their team and contractors onsite. People will appear by name on the site inside the areas created and will be searchable by skill set, certification, or title. Managers will be able to create areas that can control access to certain people and send alarms when people enter or exit.

Communication: Managers can call/text/email workers in the field from their office computers, or communicate directly through the application using direct messages. Managers can mass phone/text/email all of the workers in an area or just those with specific skill sets or designations. By ensuring everything a worker hears is relevant to them specifically, this avoids the problem of workers tuning out “radio chatter”.

Safety: Lightship enables the automation of site check-ins, which are currently performed manually by managers. Check-in intervals can be changed based on the time or area. Should an incident occur, Lightship will automatically find the best responders as pre-defined by site administrators, dramatically reducing emergency response times. Responses can be customized to different times, locations, or incident types.

Jae Reichel, CEO of Lightship, commented, “Lightship was originally designed to work with existing systems so the opportunity to work with a mine from the ground up is very exciting. The current stage of the Ajax mine development, and the company’s commitment to safety and environmental stewardship, makes KGHM the ideal candidate for Lightship’s joint development program. As a joint development partner, the company will not only assist in enhancing the current Lightship solution but, crucially, will help inform the features of the next generation of mine site management technology.”

Kate Parsons, Environmental Manager of KGHM Ajax said, “I am confident Lightship’s technology will help us manage valuable human resources and specialized skill sets more efficiently, with the goal of ultimately adapting this to the future development and operations phases. The folks over at Lightship Works have been incredibly helpful getting things moving and we’re very excited about the potential value a service such as Lightship could provide.”

Additional features and benefits delivered by Lightship include:

• Team, Fleet, and Equipment Management: Tracks and communicates with workers, vehicles, and equipment.
• Task Management: Keeps track of tasks that need to be done, can automatically assign new tasks, and keeps track of who is working on which task.
• Asset Performance: Allows monitoring of the usage and downtime of equipment as well as performance levels.
• Lone Worker Solution: Allows managers to monitor and communicate with workers who are alone or in potentially dangerous locations/circumstances (includes emergency response comms).
• Visualization: Allows people to see in real-time what is happening in the field.
• Reporting: Compiles and displays comprehensive event data.
• Event History: Keeps record and allows recall of all past events and information.
• Sensor Integration: Integrates worksite sensor data into the system in a useful way.
• Dispatch: Enables site managers to communicate with employees and outside staff.
• Emergency Response: Either notifies third party response teams, and/or follows the company’s procedures to ensure the right people are notified internally.
• Automated emergency response: Automatically notifies the correct personnel of an emergency or alarm.
• Device Agnostic: Has the ability to integrate any customer device into the application.

 About Lightship

Lightship is a leader in worksite management technology. Headquartered in Kamloops, British Columbia, the company has developed the world’s first fully-integrated, smart worksite management tool. The Lightship application gives site management teams a constant, real-time view of their worksite, workers, and equipment, together with an advanced communications and safety system. It is fully-scalable, easy to manage, and delivers strong, measurable benefits in worker response time, safety, and productivity.