Quarry Aug 2020

How a quarry operator is realising the benefits of aerial surveillance of its operation

BRADY REVIEW OF QUARRY FATALITIES EXPLAINED

36

HY-TEC BENEFITS FROM DRONE TECHNOLOGY

32

20

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF QUARRYING AUSTRALIA

Dr Sean Brady outlines how the industry can reduce its high accident and incident rates

AUGUST 2020

IMPACT OF RCS EXPOSURE STANDARDS ON QUARRIES Will revised respirable crystalline silica limits unduly affect extractive operations?

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IN THIS ISSUE AUGUST 2020

VOLUME 28, ISSUE 08

FEATURES 23 LOGICAL SUCCESSOR TO OLD WORKHORSE Boral’s Seaham Quarry has received a new wheel loader - almost 14 years after its predecessor started work.

24 LOADERS, LOYALTY WITHSTAND SANDS, TIME The durability of a wheel loader fleet pales in comparison to the partnership of a sand producer and its distributor.

26 PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE VIA REMOTE

20

DRONE TECHNOLOGY Hy-Tec is using Komatsu’s aerial tech for stockpiles, compliance and auditing.

32

BRADY REVIEW Dr Sean Brady outlines how the industry can reduce its high accident rates.

Cortex Intelligence Systems is using ifm remote controllers and sensors to improve its productivity.

27 SUPPLIER ASSISTS CONTRACTOR AT VITAL TIME A crushing and screening contractor has continued work during COVID-19 due to the support of a key supplier.

28 UNLOADING, CONVEYING SYSTEMS REDUCE COSTS Truck unloading and conveying systems are helping to eliminate additional handling costs.

30 OPERATOR INVESTS IN SIDE TIPPER ROAD TRAINS

36

RCS STANDARDS How will new exposure standards for RCS affect quarrying operations?

AUG 2020

OFFICIAL JOURNAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF QUARRYING AUSTRALIA

BRADY REVIEW OF QUARRY FATALITIES EXPLAINED

36

32

20

QUARRY

How a quarry operator is realising the benefits of aerial surveillance of its operation

Dr Sean Brady outlines how the industry can reduce its high accident and incident rates

MARK BEVAN The 2018 Quarry Operator of the Year has continued his path of professional growth.

41 FOUR BECOMES ONE How four family-owned drill and blast companies became one of Australia’s largest drill and blast providers.

AUG 2020

www.quarrymagazine.com

HY-TEC BENEFITS FROM DRONE TECHNOLOGY

42

Boral has renewed a fleet of side tippers to distribute quarry products throughout Western Queensland.

IMPACT OF RCS EXPOSURE STANDARDS ON QUARRIES Will revised respirable crystalline silica limits unduly affect extractive operations?

COVER ADVERTISER: Hy-Tec’s Austen Quarry is realising the benefits of aerial surveillance of its operation, thanks to Komatsu’s SMARTCONSTRUCTION drone technology. To learn more, turn to page 20 or visit komatsu.com.au

EVERY MONTH 04 FROM THE EDITOR

48 IQA NEWS

06 FROM THE PRESIDENT

49 FROM THE IQA CEO

08 NEWS THIS MONTH

50 GEOLOGY TALK

16 PRODUCT FOCUS

Marine haven a headache for humans

Quarry August 2020 3

EDITORIAL

MASKING UP ON TWO FRONTS: COVID-19 AND RCS

I

t seems incredible that mid-way through 2020, Australians (and specifically Victorians) are debating the efficacy of masks as a mandatory protection against the coronavirus.

As we went to press, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced that effective from 23 July, it would be mandatory for Victorians over the age of 12 to don masks in public to counter the latest wave of COVID-19. Just as Victoria and New South Wales seemingly had everything under control, restrictions were being gradually eased, and businesses and workers nationwide were feeling optimism, COVID-19 resurged with a vengeance. Daily patient cases in Victoria have climbed into the hundreds and the state has returned to lockdown until at least the end of August. NSW closed its borders with Victoria to avoid following suit as a number of cases originating from its southern neighbour flared in Sydney’s west.

It’s unknown how long the Victorian lockdown will last – and whether more restrictions may be enforced. However, the key message is simple – wear a mask, which is vital for people’s individual and collective protection, and practise social distancing and hygiene.

This advice shouldn’t be news to you as quarrying professionals. Like medical practitioners, you have been wearing personal protective equipment (PPE) in your workplaces for a long time – and not just masks but hard hats, high vis gear, steelcap boots, and eye and ear protection. Although it is disconcerting for Victorian quarrying workers that the virus has again reared its insidious tendrils, wearing PPE and practising social distancing and regular sanitisation ought to be like a walk in the park. Medical and other manufacturing professionals excepted, there is probably no better equipped workforce in Australia.

Even if you’re fortunate not to work in the virus-afflicted southern states, wearing masks and PPE in the quarrying and extractive industry is still important – not just against COVID-19 but an equally insidious “foe”.

As reported this issue (page 36), the national workplace exposure standard (WES) for respirable crystalline silica (RCS) came into effect in most states and territories from 1 July. Although not infectious, the effects of long-term exposure to RCS should not be discounted.

As recently as 2013, RCS claimed the lives of up to 46,000 workers worldwide.

Regulators insist all workers should don masks and PPE in the vicinity of heavy dust emissions, and where possible, safely distance from plant and equipment. Further, operations should have implemented means to suppress dust – eg use of water, mist and foam or hoods and coverings. Just as there is COVID-19 testing, checks of workers for airborne lung diseases is becoming more frequent and will be mandatory in Queensland (see page 12).

It will be a challenge for the industry to adapt to the new WES – but based on its response to COVID-19, the sector is ready and able. The IQA has also led by example, with the launch of fact sheets promoting hygiene and safe practice in relation to RCS and COVID-19. For more details, visit quarry.com.au If it’s commonsense for extractive workers to wear PPE in the workplace, should it really be a stretch for Mr and Ms Public to don masks? The industry is leading by example and should be admired for being ahead of the curve.

So, mask up, everyone – for yourselves and others – and stay safe and well.

Published by:

WEARING MASKS AND PPE IS NOT JUST IMPORTANT AGAINST COVID BUT RCS TOO

11-15 Buckhurst Street South Melbourne VIC 3205 T: 03 9690 8766 www.primecreativemedia.com.au Publisher John Murphy john.murphy@primecreative.com.au

Editor Damian Christie damian.christie@primecreative.com.au

Journalist Nickolas Zakharia nickolas.zakharia@primecreative.com.au

Business Development Manager Les Llyefalvy les.ilyefalvy@primecreative.com.au

Client Success Manager Ruby Viju ruby.viju@primecreative.com.au

Design Production Manager Michelle Weston michelle.weston@primecreative.com.au

Art Director Blake Storey Graphic Design Jo De Bono Subscriptions T: 03 9690 8766 subscriptions@primecreative.com.au The Publisher reserves the right to alter or omit any article or advertisement submitted and requires indemnity from the advertisers and contributors against

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damages or liabilities that may arise from material published. © Copyright – No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the permission of the publisher.

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Quarry August 2020

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PRESIDENT’S REPORT

ALL IN THIS TOGETHER – IN INCREDIBLY CHALLENGING TIMES The Institute of Quarrying

T

he latest upturn in COVID-19 cases in Victoria has dampened the mood not only for Victorians, but for the whole country. As we all know by now, in order to reduce the health crisis to protect our most vulnerable in society, it is of the utmost importance that we do everything possible to socially distance and to ensure personal hygiene is adhered to at all times. We owe it to our front line health and emergency workers to do nothing less than taking responsibility and doing everything possible to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

We must work together to suppress and to eventually eliminate this insidious virus with the support of a vaccine.

The financial crisis, as a direct result of actions to suppress the virus has – and will continue to have – a significant impact on mental health with so many affected by the loss of their jobs, reduced incomes, radically changed work environments, and the unknown of what is ahead.

While there is fantastic support through organisations such as Lifeline Crisis Support (lifeline.org.au), Beyond Blue Support Service (beyondblue. org.au), and in many cases, company employee assistance programs, we need to recognise this important health risk and reach out to one another. It is one thing to have these support services available to us, it is quite another to recognise the mental health deterioration in ourselves and of those around us, in order to take the next step of using these incredibly valuable support services. We are in this together, therefore let’s make a pact to purposely look out for one another and proactively reach out to people you wouldn’t normally contact to see how they are going.

The IQA family can help. Anyone who

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Quarry August 2020

Australia

has worked on a branch committee will tell you of the personal satisfaction of contributing and working with others for a good cause. In many cases, these hard working members enlist for a second or third time on a committee and there are some who have spent decades working on branches or committees of the IQA board. While personal satisfaction is not the primary reason for these hard-working members to contribute, the relationships and friendships is what drives them to continue. No one wants to let the other down. Perhaps it takes times like these to recognise that the IQA has always provided a sense of “We are all in this together”, as we pursue further education, advance the science of quarrying through innovation, and share industry learning to mitigate the significant risks that frontline quarry workers face each and every day.

The IQA is reviewing our mental health information, programs and, eventually, seeking to partner with a nationally recognised mental health support group to which our members can access additional mental health services wherever and whenever they need them. If you have information, ideas, or want to learn more about the IQA’s mental health support initiatives, contact IQA CEO Kylie Fahey, email ceo@quarry.com.au or visit quarry.com.au On behalf of the IQA board and administration, we wish you, your family, and friends all the very best of physical and mental health during these incredibly challenging times.

SHANE BRADDY President Institute of Quarrying Australia

Educating and connecting our extractive industry

quarry.com.au THE IQA IS REVIEWING ITS MENTAL HEALTH PROGRAMS AND SEEKING TO PARTNER WITH A NATIONALLY RECOGNISED SUPPORT GROUP

The Institute of Quarrying Australia’s goals are: 1. To provide world class professional development for the extractive industries.

2. To establish an Australasian Academy of Quarrying.

3. To align service offerings with industry needs.

IQA CONTACTS: Chief Executive Officer Kylie Fahey PO Box 1779 Milton BC QLD 4064 Phone: 0477 444 328 ceo@quarry.com.au Company Secretary Rod Lester Phone: 0408 121 788 rgl@rlester.com.au Finance Officer Gemma Thursfield Phone: 0402 431 090 gemma@quarry.com.au General, membership and financial inquiries should be directed to admin@quarry.com.au or phone 02 9484 0577.

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NEWS

BORAL ENLISTS ADBRI DEPUTY AS COMPANY CEO ‘BORAL CAN PERFORM AT A HIGHER LEVEL AND BE RECOGNISED AS A GREAT BUSINESS WHICH IS WHAT ATTRACTED ME TO THE POSITION’ ZLATKO TODORCEVSKI

Boral’s new CEO Zlatko Todorcevski.

In a major coup, Boral has appointed former Adbri deputy chairman Zlatko Todorcevski as the company’s new chief executive officer and managing director, as it looks to rectify its position in the market.

Todorcevski commenced his new role on 1 July, 2020, which the company said was the start of a “transition period” before current CEO and managing director Mike Kane retires in September.

In his time at Adbri (formerly known as Adelaide Brighton), Todorcevski operated on the company’s board from March 2017 and then transitioned to the role of deputy chairman and lead independent

director from May 2019 – while serving as chairman in some instances.

Upon his appointment, Todorcevski immediately stepped down from Adbri’s board, along with moving off the boards of Coles Group Limited and The Star Entertainment Group.

According to Boral’s board chairman Kathryn Fagg, Todorcevski brings an abundance of experience to the company.

“With exceptional commercial acumen, strategic insight and a focus on return on capital, Zlatko has a strong track record as a senior executive in a number of large industrial and energy companies,” Fagg said. “His experience in leading

major transformations, including business turnarounds, as well as in capital allocation and strategic portfolio management, are critically important for Boral.

“Zlatko’s mandate as Boral’s CEO is at the outset to set a clear operational plan, including how to manage through the current challenging conditions, and to work with the board to finalise the review of the operational performance and strategic positioning of the businesses within Boral’s portfolio.

He will then deliver a strategy to strengthen the financial performance of the company and to improve returns for our shareholders.”

Todorcevski said he believes Boral has the potential to be lifted out of its financial slump. “I see my job as helping to shape Boral’s future and ensuring that a company with such a proud 75-year history and heritage continues to thrive and prosper for many years into the future,” he said.

“Boral has the potential to perform at a higher level and to be recognised as a great business, which is what attracted me to the position in the first place. My brief is straightforward — to use my strategic and commercial expertise and knowledge of the sector to strengthen the business so that we are delivering attractive returns for our shareholders, doing a great job for our customers, and ensuring we run a safe and sustainable company for our people and the communities in which we operate.” •

SHARP DECLINE EASES FOR PCI BUT LONG ROAD AHEAD The contraction in construction activity has slowed but business conditions are still negative in the Australian Industry Group’s Australian Performance of Construction Index (PCI) for June 2020. The PCI reported an increase in all four sectors, with an overall rise of 10.6 points to 35.5.

House building (up 19.4 points to 39.6), apartment building (up 23.2 points to 44.8), commercial construction (up 8.5 points to 26.6) and engineering construction (up 19.4 points to 39.6) all saw marginal rises, which the PCI attributes to recent government grants and the reopening of display homes in some states.

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Quarry August 2020

While the index is firmly planted in the negative space (scores below 50 show contraction), there are signs business conditions are not as bad as they have been since the impact of COVID-19. The PCI experienced its 22nd consecutive month of contraction in June but the overall decline has slowed after record lows in April. Construction activity increased by 13.7 to 35.1 points in June.

Ai Group head of policy Peter Burn said it will be sometime before a significant recovery is seen in the industry. “While continuing to contract, the pace of decline in the construction sector eased in June

The Australian PCI rose by 10.6 points to 35.5 in June. Image courtesy of Ai Group.

...” he said. “Nevertheless, construction activity, employment and new orders were all lower in June, suggesting that it will be some time before the industry recovers.” •

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BRADY REPORT ON QUEENSLAND QUARRY FATALITIES PRESENTED IN IQA WEBINAR As part of an educational session for the quarrying industry, forensic structural engineer Dr Sean Brady has presented his recommendations on how the industry can reduce its fatality, serious accident and high potential incident rates.

In an IQA webinar on Wednesday, 24 June, Dr Brady presented the findings of his report – Review of all fatal accidents in Queensland mines and quarries from 2000 to 2019 – and how it related to quarries.

The report, which was released earlier this year, provides an independent analysis of Queensland’s mining and quarrying fatalities, serious accidents and high potential incidents (HPIs) across a 20-year period. Dr Brady calculated the frequency of the deaths, serious accidents and HPIs in terms of incidents per million hours worked.

It made its way to the Queensland Parliament in February, ahead of the state’s new provisions to mine and quarry manslaughter laws.

The report assessed 47 of Queensland’s industry-related deaths between 2000 to 2019.

There were six fatalities in quarrying across a 20-year period, four being employees and two being contractors. A total of 35,000 incidents were also analysed.

To read what Dr Brady had to say, turn to page 32. •

There were six fatalities in quarrying across a 20-year period, four being employees and two being contractors.

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Quarry August 2020

NEGLIGENT SENIOR OFFICERS TO FACE SEVERE PENALTIES CATEGORY 1 OFFENCES INCUR A $600K FINE AND/OR FIVE YEARS IN PRISON

New amendments to the New South Wales work health and safety laws now include gross negligence under a category one offence, the most serious breach of responsibility by someone with a health and safety duty that recklessly exposes a person to the risk of death or serious injury.

As per the legislation, category one offences can incur up to a $3 million fine for corporations, $600,000 and/or five years’ imprisonment for an officer or individual conducting either a business or undertaking, and $300,000 and/or five years’ imprisonment for individual workers.

The 2020 amendments to the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 were passed by the NSW Parliament and came into effect on 10 June.

SafeWork NSW stated that the inclusion of gross negligence under the category one offence makes it easier to prosecute and create a stronger incentive for duty holders to manage WHS risks.

Other amendments to the Act prohibit any insurance and indemnity arrangements to prevent duty holders from avoiding the responsibility of paying WHS fines.

The 2020 amendments to the Work Health and Safety Act came to effect on 10 June.

The penalty for all WHS offences has also increased in the 2020 amendments, in line with the Consumer Price Index to ensure penalties retain their deterrent value.

The time in which a person can ask the WHS regulators to start a prosecution in response to a category one or category two offence has been extended from 12 to 18 months.

Category two offences refer to failure to comply with a health and safety duty that exposes a person to risk of death, serious injury or illness. It is punishable by a fine of $1.5 million for corporations, $300,000 for individuals conducting a business or undertaking or officers and $150,000 for individual workers or others. •

INDUSTRIAL MANSLAUGHTER OFFENCES PUT INTO EFFECT Queensland’s hard-hitting mine and quarry safety laws have become active as of 1 July, with industrial manslaughter now an offence in Queensland’s resources sector.

Queensland Mines Minister Dr Anthony Lynham hopes this will protect resources workers and reduce fatal accidents.

“Sadly, eight workers have died on the job in our mines and quarries in the past two years ... ” he said. “In the 21st century this is unacceptable.

I sincerely hope the new industrial manslaughter laws never have to be used and that everyone takes full responsibility for their obligations on site to protect the safety and health of our workers. Health and safety responsibility resides with everyone, from executives in

Queensland has now made industrial manslaughter an offence, with harsher penalties for non-compliance.

head office to workers on site.”

The state has also introduced new independent statutory body Resources Safety and Health Queensland, which will regulate health and safety across the state’s mines, quarries, petroleum, gas sites and explosives supply chain. The regulator will report directly to the minister. •

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NEWS

METSO OUTOTEC MERGER SETS SIGHTS ON TOMORROW Metso has officially merged its minerals business with Outotec to form a new company with aims to become an industry leader across the minerals, aggregates, metals refining and recycling industries.

Metso Outotec will fuse and enhance the two companies’ offerings, covering sustainable technology, solutions and services for minerals processing and other areas.

“Our aim with this merger is to reach much higher — reach out so that we can clearly say that we are a Tier 1 company when it comes to financial performance but also other things,” Metso Outotec president and CEO Pekka Vauramo said at a media briefing.

Before becoming Metso Outotec, Metso’s mineral business offered dry minerals processing, crushing, screening and milling equipment, along with pyro technology and tailings management systems.

Outotec developed wet processing technology, including flotation, hydrometallurgy and filtration.

Finalised on 1 July, the merger brings together the two Finnish companies, which enjoyed 4.186 billion Euros ($AUD6.8 billion) in combined sales for 2019.

The two companies had 61 per cent of their joint sales attributed to the mining industry in 2019, followed by aggregates (26 per cent) and metals and recycling (13 per cent).

Vauramo hopes that the merger can grow Metso Outotec’s market presence in the Asia Pacific region, which includes Australia.

“Asia Pacific is really the emerging supply base for many of our products,” he said.

In 2019, the Asia Pacific contributed to 23 per cent of the Outotec and Metso mineral businesses’ joint sales.

The merger covers six business areas including minerals, aggregates, metals recycling, services and consumables. •

12

Quarry August 2020

FREE LUNG HEALTH CHECKS FOR QLD QUARRY WORKERS TESTS WILL OCCUR WHEN A MINE OR QUARRY WORKER STARTS IN THE INDUSTRY AND WILL BE REPEATED EVERY FIVE YEARS

Queensland’s quarrying and mining workers will be given free lung health checks for life to protect them from dust-related lung diseases.

From 1 September, Queensland’s 15,000 mine and quarrying workers will be given free mandatory lung health checks to prevent exposure to deadly diseases such as respirable crystalline silica (RCS).

It will involve a chest X-ray that is analysed by two radiologists, along with a lung function test. The service will also be available free of charge to people who have left the industry.

“Every Queensland worker has the right to safe working conditions and peace of mind,” Queensland Mines Minister Dr Anthony Lynham said.

“As a doctor I know that hand-inhand with disease prevention goes early detection, because it helps stop disease progressing. And mandatory screening is critical for early detection.”

From 1 September, the tests will occur when a mine or quarry worker first starts in the industry and will be repeated at least once every five

years. Free respiratory health checks will be offered to workers after they leave the industry or retire.

The Member for Townsville Scott Stewart said Queensland’s quarrying and mining workforce would benefit greatly from testing.

“Our mine workers make a massive contribution to Queensland’s economy, and particularly through the COVID-19 pandemic,” Stewart said.

“I know workers, and their families, will welcome these extra measures to protect their health on top of the many safety reforms the Palaszczuk Government has put in place.”

The Palaszczuk Government has introduced $35 million worth of health and safety reforms for Queensland’s quarrying and mining workforce, including a mobile health service that will provide lung checks by the end of 2020 and a confidential mine dust health support service to help the industry’s workers access healthrelated information and services. •

NSW PROMOTES DUST HEALTH COMPETENCY IN QUARRIES, MINES The New South Wales Mine Safety Advisory Council is striving to wipe away the threat of dust at mines and quarries through a new awareness campaign.

NSW Mine Safety Advisory Council chairman George Souris AM said the new campaign — employing the slogan Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it is not there — aims to teach workers, mines and quarries how they can stay safe and prevent dust-related health issues.

“Quarries and mines can be dusty places to work and this campaign will hopefully help workers and contractors better understand the health impacts of dust and how workers can help take steps to ensure their own personal safety as well as that of their mates,” Souris said.

The campaign provides insights from health and safety, and industry

Metso’s MX4 crushers in parallel operation at Boral’s Ormeau quarry.

officials, along with an online toolkit.

It is one of many ways the NSW Government is aiming to tackle dust-related diseases, after the state introduced new reforms on 1 July, including the new respirable crystalline silica (RCS) Workplace Exposure Standard of 0.05mg/m³. •

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COMMONWEALTH, VICTORIAN GOVERNMENTS COMMIT MORE FUNDS TO INFRASTRUCTURE Amid growing concerns over Victoria’s COVID-19 situation, the Federal and State Governments have announced a $525 million joint investment package that will deliver “shovel-ready” projects and road safety upgrades across Victoria.

A total $320 million investment has been provided by the Federal Government under the package, and the Victorian Government will spend $205.5 million.

The Federal Government recently announced infrastructure joint investments with other states across the country.

“Partnering with State and Territory Governments to invest in more infrastructure projects across Australia is a key part of our JobMaker plan to rebuild our economy and create more jobs,” the Prime Minister Scott Morrison said. “This funding injection means we have brought forward or provided additional funding in excess of $830 million to Victoria in the past eight months.

“This package builds on the fast tracking of $514 million for infrastructure in Victoria which we announced last November, locking in priority upgrades that will bust congestion, increase productivity, improve safety, and boost jobs at a time we need it most.”

Premier Daniel Andrews said the projects will help fortify the state’s construction industry.

“This partnership with the Commonwealth will build the projects regional communities need and help keep our construction industry strong – which is more important than ever right now as we rebuild from the pandemic,” he said.

“This package is on top of our $2.7 billion we’re investing in new projects across the state to get shovels in the ground – and boots in the mud – to kickstart our economy.” •

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Quarry August 2020

ALEX FRASER’S FOUR-LEGGED PARTNERSHIP PAYS OFF THE ALEX FRASER/SARDA PARTNERSHIP HAS HELPED READY SOME OF AUSTRALIA’S MOST SKILLED FOUR-LEGGED RESCUERS

Alex Fraser Group’s recycling facilities have been the ideal training ground for a highly skilled team of canines that recently rescued a teenager in Victoria’s Great Dividing Range.

The unlikely combination of Alex Fraser’s recycling facilities and rescue dogs organisation SARDA has proven to be instrumental in readying some of Australia’s most skilled four-legged search and rescue personnel.

SARDA, which operates as a not-forprofit organisation, has been saving lost and trapped Australians since its formation in 1994.

A top dog at SARDA is a black Labrador named Obi Wan Kenobi.

Even without the skills of a Jedi Knight, Obi was one of Victoria’s only hopes in tracking down missing teenager William Callaghan from Mount Disappointment in early June.

Obi is one of several Labradors and Golden Retrievers that train fortnightly at Alex Fraser’s construction and demolition recycling facilities, which simulate disaster zones in the aftermath of an earthquake or a building collapse.

The company’s Clarinda Recycling

Alex Fraser’s recycling facilities offer the perfect environments for rescue dog training.

Facility offers stockpiles of demolition material that act as post-urban disaster environments. It also has thousands of trees that help replicate the bushland SARDA’s dogs are deployed in. Alex Fraser’s Laverton facility is also used for SARDA’s annual three-day training camps.

For SARDA founder and head trainer Julie Cowan, Alex Fraser’s support has helped significantly.

“Access to their sites in Clarinda and Laverton are vital to our training and the growth of our capability,” she said. “And in addition to that they help us access vital canine equipment and member equipment, and fund international trainers to attend our annual training camps. We are truly thankful for their support.” •

MARS LAVA SPECULATION GETS STUCK IN THE MUD A team of European researchers have uncovered evidence that supposed lava flows on the planet Mars were once flows of muddy water. The red planet is littered with dormant volcanoes with idents of the old lava flows being visible from space.

But the findings published in Nature Geoscience in May suggest the remains of some flows may actually be composed of mud, not lava.

These muddy flows on the Martian surface are referred to as sedimentary volcanism, in which liquid mud erupts from Mars’s surface and flows like lava before freezing solid again.

The researchers used a low pressure chamber to conduct experiments investigating mud propagation on Mars by mimicking

A mud volcano on Mars. Image c-/ NASA/ JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/DLR.

the planet’s conditions in cold temperatures. They found “low viscosity mud under Martian conditions propagates differently from that on Earth, because of a rapid freezing and the formation of an icy crust ... the experimental mud flows propagate like terrestrial pahoehoe lava flows ... and then refreezing to form a new flow lobe.” •

Partner for positive change The world around us – from skyscrapers, bridges and highways to the internet and all the devices connected to it – is made of aggregates, minerals and metals. The newly formed Metso Outotec provides the technologies and services needed to responsibly produce the commodities that build modern society. We lean on more than 150 years of experience to continuously innovate solutions for a more efficient and sustainable tomorrow. That’s why we are your partner for positive change.

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PRODUCT FOCUS

To submit new product and equipment releases, email: les.ilyefalvy@primecreative.com.au

CRUSHING AND SCREENING IN ONE SOLUTION Metso’s Lokotrack LT220D provides an addition to Metso’s crushing and screening equipment portfolio. By combining a high performance cone crusher and screen onto one chassis, quarries can enjoy the advantages of cost savings, lower fuel consumption and an increased production time and capacity. The LT220D can be equipped with Nordberg GP220 or H200 cone crushers, with its large 8.4m2 screen offering high capacity and efficiency. The crusher and the screen run on a single Caterpillar C13 diesel engine with an efficient direct drive power transmission – all in one compact package.

More information: Metso Outotec, metso.com Tutt Bryant Equipment, tuttbryant.com.au

YING HUI LAUNCH HUGE ASSORTMENT OF CONVEYOR BELTS Ying Hui International’s new conveyor belt series covers a wide range of applications in quarries and beyond. Extensive tests have been made in the company’s laboratory on all components and raw materials used in the belting products. The new range includes a cotton conveyor belt, nylon conveyor belt, polyester (EP) belt, chemical resistant belt, heat resistant/high temperature/cold resistant belt, a flame retardant belt, an anti-tearing and shock-resistant belt, a chevron belt, an endless belt and an oil resistant belt. Ying Hui have the capacity to produce a new belt in two weeks, with a warehouse located in Dandenong, Victoria capable of quickly fulfilling orders.

More information: Ying Hui International, hhjv.com.au

COMBINING THE BEST OF PROCESSING The Combo range from CDE Global merges feeding, sizing, sand washing, stockpiling and complete integrated water management into a modular and compact chassis. The patented turnkey materials wet processing and water management solution enhances production by increasing yield to maximise profit per tonne. Its fines separation and sand dewatering enhances yields while delivering less than 15 per cent moisture content, with up to 90 per cent of process water recycled for immediate re-use. To top this off, it features a 30 per cent reduced footprint, requiring less civils expenditure and planning costs.

More information: CDE Global, cdeglobal.com

PULLEYS FOR SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS Kinder’s K-Conveyor pulleys have been specifically designed for maximum service life for a variety of quarrying applications where material build-up is likely. Build-up can cause mistracking and belt damage, which the K-Conveyor is designed to deal with in a robust way, with the range specialising in high load and high belt speeds. The range includes K-Conveyor spiral pulleys, wing pulleys (photo) and HD wing pulleys. The K-Conveyor pulleys offer a specialised solution for specific applications. They are all manufactured to customer specifications and are equipped with the latest software to maximise equipment life.

More information: Kinder Australia, kinder.com.au

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Quarry August 2020

PRODUCT FOCUS

To submit new product and equipment releases, email: les.ilyefalvy@primecreative.com.au

QUARRY PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS As a global specialist in tyres, Michelin knows that the right set of rubber on quarry machinery can offer a range of benefits. This includes improved productivity, cost management, tyre life performance, reduced tyre consumption, spend and replacement service costs, along with reduced downtime. Michelin’s Quarry Productivity Solutions enables sites to reach their goals through these benefits, increasing their productivity and efficiency in the long haul.

More information: Michelin Quarry Product Solutions, michelinearthmover.com

RAISING PRODUCTIVITY LEVELS WITH CONE CRUSHER RANGE thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions has extended its offerings for the minerals, aggregate and cement industries with a revised range of Kubria cone crushers. They feature hydraulic setting adjustments that allow for a more specific level of product size control for quarrying applications. The Kubriamatic control system allows the machine’s vital parameters to be monitored. It also maintains hydraulic pressure and provides tramp protection with the closed side setting’s quick reset.

Modular medium and fine frame designs allow for interchangeable crushing chambers to suit a number of requirements for specific applications.

More information: thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions, thyssenkrupp-industrial-solutions.com

USER-FRIENDLY VERSATILITY FROM MODULAR HANGING SCREEN Sandvik’s double-deck modular hanging screen offers the unique advantage of producing two screened products. This versatile approach enables producers to adapt the machine in open or closed circuit configurations. The modular design means it takes less than 30 minutes for the screen to be installed or removed. Sandvik have achieved minimal leakage and prevention of environmental contamination through the engineering of quick release couplings that contribute to its safe and environmentally friendly design.

More information: Sandvik Rock & Technology, rocktechnology.sandvik

SELF-CONTAINED STACKERS Superior industries has introduced a standard new range of TeleStacker conveyor models that include on-board power. Featuring a 96kW Tier 4 Final Caterpillar 4.4 engine, the self-contained, radial, telescoping conveyors have a wide range of capabilities in quarrying. Self-contained TeleStackers are designed in 914mm (36”) belt widths and feature fullyextended operating lengths of 33m, 39m and 45m. They also feature XTP swing axles, hydraulic drivers for the main power and stinger conveyors, superior brand idlers and pulleys, plus an on-board counterweight. Overall, the new TeleStacker aims to provide a cost-effective material handling solution to increase stockpile volumes and loading capacities.

More information: Superior Industries, superior-ind.com 888 Crushing & Screening Equipment, 888cse.com.au

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LOAD & HAUL

HY-TEC GAINS MAJOR BENEFITS FROM DRONE SURVEYS TECHNOLOGY

Quarry operator Hy-Tec is realising benefits in site safety, efficiency and productivity advances, through the use of Komatsu’s SMARTCONSTRUCTION drone technology for stockpile management, compliance and site auditing on its sites throughout New South Wales.

H

y-Tec, one of 19 respected bands within the ASX-listed Adbri Limited Group portfolio, operates quarries throughout the east coast of Australia to supply aggregates and sands to the infrastructure, commercial, civil and residential construction sectors, as well as supporting the Group’s 95 pre-mix concrete plants. In total, Adbri’s group of companies operates 44 quarries across Australia.

In late 2018, Komatsu began aerial surveying and stockpile volume reporting of Hy-Tec’s Austen Quarry at Hartley, west of the Blue Mountains.

Following this initial success, it now provides twice-yearly aerial surveys and stockpile volume reports at Austen and the company’s other six quarries in NSW: Penrose, Tinda Creek, Dunbogan, Grants, Yarrabee and Tumbulgum.

These aerial surveys are primarily to provide volume reporting of stockpiles but also help confirm that each operation is complying with its licensed extraction limits, and to identify potential offset areas – as well as providing efficiency, production and site management benefits.

The surveys are carried out by James Mackenzie, the project solution consultant with UNISI, a joint venture between Komatsu and Topcon distributor Position Partners, using Komatsu’s SMARTCONSTRUCTION technology and offerings.

20

Quarry August 2020

The aerial surveys are primarily to provide volume reporting of stockpiles but also help confirm that each operation is complying with its licensed extraction limits, and to identify potential offset areas.

Komatsu’s EveryDay Drone (EDD) technology is a high precision unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) survey system that provides advanced, super fast on-site processing using SMARTCONSTRUCTION’s Edge technology.

Craig McDonald, Hy-Tec’s Austen Quarry manager, said the aerial surveying process using Komatsu drones was very simple and straightforward.

“James comes out to the quarry twice a year and does our stockpile surveys, as well

as providing aerial photos and surveying for potential offset areas, and future quarry development,” he said.

“When he does the stockpile surveys, James sets up the same points each time, flies around the stockpiles, then sends us a draft report of the volumes and materials in each stockpile.

“We update them according to our actual material stockpile numbers and volume, and compare them with our previous drone surveys,” McDonald said.

Hy-Tec’s Austen Quarry, in Hartley, NSW, west of the Blue Mountains.

SAFETY, TIME BENEFITS Hy-Tec’s quarries use these aerial surveys to measure stockpiles gains/losses for accounting and auditing purposes.

“Each six months, they show us the volume that’s in each stockpile,” McDonald said. “We know how much we’ve extracted and sold, and if there’s a discrepancy – say, has it been misallocated, or gone to a different customer – we can track it down.”

He said using Komatsu’s EDD technology was resulting in significant safety benefits and time savings.

“Previously, we’d have a surveyor on the ground with a staff, taking about two days to survey the stockpiles. Now James is on site for maybe two to three hours. It’s very costcompetitive and a lot faster and safer because James is well out of the way of fixed and mobile equipment,” McDonald said.

Hy-Tec’s quarries are also using the technology to monitor extraction limits – particularly in areas that are relatively inaccessible, or have dangerously steep slopes.

“The drone can fly over and physically check boundaries, as well as monitor how wide and deep we are extracting, to show that we are not going too deep or working out of area,” McDonald said.

“As well, at Austen, we have 15m benches into the quarry, and it’s on a very steep hill – so it’s not a very nice place to have to survey on foot.

“The other application we’re using it for is aerial photography for our rehabilitation works, so we can monitor progress every six months.”

In addition to these survey-related benefits, McDonald said the regularly updated aerial visuals of the site were proving invaluable in

operating and managing the quarry on a day to day basis.

“When we’re having our regular toolbox meetings, they are a really useful way to communicate with the team on what we’re planning with pit development, or the next stages of the quarry,” he said. “When we have haul road changes, we can communicate easily with other users of the area, show them the aerial image and where they have to get to.

“And going forward, we’re going to incorporate some of this technology into our induction process. So, rather than using traditional handwritten maps, we can go through images showing what’s happening, where people will be working, and pinpoint areas of concern, such as high benches, bench identification, drill work areas and so on.

“We can also use them for driver induction and traffic management flow plans; we can show someone who’s come on site to load some aggregates exactly where the stockpiles are, and how to safely get there. Again, that’s so much better than the old-style handwritten maps.”

SKY’S THE LIMIT McDonald sees benefits in using this technology across improvements in safety, productivity, efficiency and costs, plus a whole host of extra benefits that have only become apparent since the quarry has been using it.

“Really, the sky’s the limit in what you could be using this technology for,” he said. “There’s potential for our load and haul team to use it to help optimise cycle times, identify optimum routes and gradients, pinpoint areas of holdups and choke-points, geological faults and so on.

The complete plant set-up at Hy-Tec’s Austen Quarry.

And again, we can be using them even more in toolbox meetings so that everyone’s on the same page.

“Going forward, I think we could benefit more from using EDD technology’s RL [Reference Level] capabilities, working in with our excavation equipment,” McDonald added.

“So we could set our excavator to only go to RL100 and no more, so that we are extracting 100 per cent of what we’ve paid to drill and blast, plus it would ensure we always had nice level benches and floors.”

Another unexpected benefit of the aerial drone technology has been its ability to provide a “fly through” of the total quarry operation for Hy-Tec Austen’s engagement program.

“We had an open day recently, and in preparation for that, we flew the whole process, from the rock face through to the crushing operations and stockpiles, then onto loading material and trucking it off site through the gate,” McDonald explained.

“We used this for the open day for our local community, and also for a recent board members’ meeting, and as a presentation for potential investors.”

Looking to the statewide picture, Ethan Pettiford, Hy-Tec’s NSW quarry operations manager, said the aerial surveying package from Komatsu worked very well for the company.

“In terms of mapping our quarry operations, the technology works extremely well, giving us all we need to survey and monitor our quarry operations throughout NSW,” Pettiford said. “James comes and does all our flyovers; he’s very helpful, and the operation is completely pain-free.” • Source: Komatsu Australia

Quarry August 2020 21

LOAD & HAUL

EDD TECHNOLOGY Komatsu SMARTCONSTRUCTION’s EDD technology uses purpose-designed Explore1 precision 3D mapping drones to provide total site solutions for customers.

The highly specialised EDD UAV technology is the only commercial quadcopter capable of creating 3D point clouds with sub-5cm accuracy, without the use of ground control points.

It is coupled with Edge 1 technology allowing Komatsu to process rapid high accuracy point clouds in remote areas without internet connectivity or the need for a high performance laptop, representing a major advance in data processing.

The system is able to record current as-built data, and provide high resolution imagery for daily updates and construction progress, plus cut and fill volume reporting.

Komatsu SMARTCONSTRUCTION’s EDD UAV capabilities include: • Site survey cut/fill and stockpile volume

calculations, allowing users to: • Measure quantities to confirm cut and fill estimates.

• Identify potential delays and verify truckload estimates.

• Carry out continuous as-built surveys at the beginning, middle and end of projects.

• Progress tracking and site logistics, allowing: • Billing verification and work-in-place tracking.

• Site logistics overlay and site constraint analysis.

• Quicker and more accurate site planning.

• Online collaboration and communication, including: • Frequent map updates for improved safety and co-ordination with outside agencies.

• File exports for data manipulation, reporting and site meetings.

An aerial view of a Komatsu loader approaching a stockpile.

LOAD & HAUL

SEAHAM QUARRY TAKES ON LOGICAL SUCCESSOR TO DECADE-OLD WORKHORSE

B

oral’s Seaham Quarry, north of Newcastle, New South Wales, has recently taken delivery of a Komatsu WA600-8 wheel loader – almost exactly 14 years after its predecessor machine, a WA600-6, started work at the quarry.

When it was delivered to Seaham in late 2005, the WA600-6 was the first of this model to be commissioned in Australia.

The quarry is Boral’s main source of hard rock for aggregate production serving the Hunter and Port Stephens regions of NSW. Like its predecessor, the quarry’s new WA600-8 is being used for both face loading and crusher stockpile handling in a two-shift operation at the quarry – a proven process which has worked successfully for the past 14 years, according to quarry manager Matt Miller.

Material at Seaham is won through a drill and blast operation, with the WA600-8 used as a face loader, loading two dump trucks which feed the crusher during the day shift (from 6:30am to 3:00pm), as well as the boot bin stockpile adjacent to the crusher.

During the afternoon shift (from 3:00pm to 10:00pm), it then becomes a stockpile loader, loading material from the boot bin to the crusher.

“We’ve had a very successful run from the previous WA600-6 since it came on-site in 2005, and that’s the reason we went for Komatsu’s new Dash 8 loader,” Miller said.

“Because of its role in the quarry, this loader plays a critical role across both face loading and crusher stockpile handling, so we really depend on it. For that reason, we decided it was time for a new machine.”

The WA600-8 is powered by a Tier 4 Komatsu engine, rated at 395kW net.

During its time at Seaham, the WA600-6 had logged nearly 35,000 hours. In early 2013, at the 21,000-hour mark, Komatsu carried out a rebuild of the loader, including a replacement engine and drivetrain, hydraulic pump and lift and steering cylinders.

Delivered in early March 2020, Miller said the new WA600-8 has been performing very well in comparison with its predecessor.

“The fuel burn on it is significantly less than the previous loader. Terry Johnson, our main operator of the loader, and who’s been there since the last one was delivered, is over the moon with it,” he said. “And our relationship with Komatsu, in terms of service and

support is something we are definitely happy with. Any time we need something done, we just need to call them, and they’ll come out and sort out any issues for us.”

Komatsu’s WA600-8 is powered by a Komatsu SAA6D170E-7 engine, rated at 395kW net, is available with operating weights from 55.4 to 57.5 tonnes and takes bucket sizes from 6.4m to 7.8m.

The Tier 4 Final certified engine reduces nitrous oxide and particulate matter levels by up to 90 per cent compared with its Tier 3 predecessors, as well as delivering fuel savings of up to 15 per cent. • Source: Komatsu Australia

Quarry August 2020 23

The Volvo L220H loader does most of the ‘grunt’ work today at Macka’s Sand & Soil Supplies.

LOAD & HAUL

LOADERS, LOYALTY

WITHSTAND SANDS, TIME If the durability of a fleet of Volvo wheel loaders amongst sand dunes and salted air over many years isn’t impressive enough, it pales in comparison to the partnership between the coastal sand producer and the plant distributor.

I

n the industry of premium quality fine sand, Macka’s Sand & Soil Supplies is a big name renowned for its top-shelf sand and soil products for the commercial, building/ construction, glass and turfgrass industries locally and internationally. The pristine windblown sand is collected from the coastal region between Newcastle and Port Stephens, in northeastern New South Wales, where mountainous sand dunes stretch out as far as the eye can see.

Macka’s Sand & Soil Supplies is a family-run business set up by Robert Mackenzie and his father Bruce some three decades ago. Back in 1991, the plant consisted of a single 1830 Acco truck and a Case backhoe.

“I remember delivering sand at night after working a day job at ACI,” Mackenzie recalled.

“I also remember sometimes having to shovel the sand off the back of the truck by hand if the site had an incline.”

Times have definitely changed from those humble beginnings. Macka’s Sand & Soil Supplies is now one of the largest operators on the east coast of Australia, moving two million tonnes of pristine Stockton sand 24

Quarry August 2020

Owner/operator Robert Mackenzie (left) with CJD Equipment’s NSW general manager Michael Lombardo.

per year. Mackenzie’s two sons have also joined the company, “All things considered it is working out great,” Mackenzie said. “Of course, at times, family businesses can have their challenges, but generally things have been going great with my boys.”

When asking Mackenzie about the main focus of Macka’s Sand & Soil and a little bit of his history, he said: “The main focus of the business is pushing out a high quality, costeffective product into the building/construction industry, glass industries and turfgrass soils.

Being located on the coastline behind the Stockton Beach area, we are extracting the windblown dune sand along the edge of the coastal fringe. For me personally, I started

out working in a sand mine called ACI when I was 18. I leased a block next door with an option to purchase when I was 20, and here we are today – one of the largest operators on the east coast of Australia moving two million tonnes per year.”

With mountainous dunes surrounding the operation, it’s easy to see how the team at Macka’s can move two million tonnes of sand consistently per year. With such sand substantial volumes being processed, there is an equally important requirement for the right machinery to re-move, screen, process and load into the queue of trucks delivering the sand products across NSW, Australia and abroad. Macka’s has exclusively run with Volvo

Australia’s leading designer and manufacturer of rubber torsion spring motor bases. machines for decades, and its relationship with CJD Equipment is as strong as the Volvo L220H wheel loaders that work tirelessly day in, day out on Macka’s operations. The efficiency of this outfit is truly impressive.

Mackenzie started out on a Volvo 120D, and after trying other brands while working for other outfits, he always found himself coming back to the Volvo machines. “The fuel efficiency and cost savings are great, but the essential factor for me was the operator comfort,” Mackenzie explained. “Our employees love driving them, and they stand up to the conditions and workloads. Our operators have always provided great feedback and reliability is second to none. Our Volvos and our relationship with CJD Equipment are an integral part of our success.”

LONG-STANDING PARTNERSHIP When discussing Macka’s machines with Mackenzie and Michael Lombardo, the general manager of CJD Equipment NSW, it is evident that there has been some unique customisation developed to maximise the efficiencies of Macka’s vehicles. “It’s a pretty fastmoving pace on-site and the Volvos navigate in and around each other with precision manoeuvring that does justice to the skill and the hours that the operators put in,” Lombardo said.

Mackenzie says what sets him apart from his competition is his hands-on approach and operating hours to support the communities in his area. “Our hours of operation, hands-on approach and the desire to supply all industries that have a use for sand and soils is no doubt the secret to our success. We have also put a lot of importance in the value of working with the communities of our very important area,” he said.

Lombardo’s personal relationship with Macka’s goes back nearly 13 years with Mackenzie and his father Bruce, and with CJD Equipment’s relationship preceding even that, it is remarkable that such partnerships and loyalties have stood the test of time.

“It has been a pleasure to work with both Bruce and Rob over the last 12 years,” Lombardo said. “During this time, apart from supplying their machinery needs, we have worked together to deliver buckets that meet the maximum efficiency requirement of their loaders. It’s this close type of relationship where we can go the extra mile to meet our client’s expectations that we pride ourselves on here at CJD Equipment.

“Working in and around sand dunes and coastal salt air environments can be very hard on some machinery, but we have been thrilled with our Volvos’ ability to excel over long periods of time in these testing conditions.”

This is a fact that has been equally appreciated by the team at Macka’s Sand & Soil. “Rob has a mix of Volvos throughout his fleet.

However, purchases over recent years have concentrated around the L220H series wheeled loader,” Lombardo explained. “There is a very close relationship with CJD Equipment and the Volvo product that Rob developed, and he has a wealth of knowledge and market intelligence about what is going on in his immediate area and the greater Newcastle region. Rob allows us to work collaboratively with him throughout his business, from the point of purchase and machine set-up through to the level of aftersales support we can offer him, resulting in maximum uptime.” •

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LOAD & HAUL

DELIVERING PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE VIA REMOTE CONTROLLED DEVICES

C

ortex Intelligent Systems, a company engaged in automated exploratory drilling, is using ifm technology to remotely control drill rigs under extremely harsh working conditions. The collaboration has resulted in considerable cost-savings for Cortex’s customers.

Cortex uses ifm CR711S controllers and a suite of ifm sensors including proximity switchers, coders and inclinometers to collect and collate information from the drill rigs. The data is then fed into Cortex’s software program SYNAPSE where real-time analysis of mineral samples down-hole allows operators to autoadjust core processes.

Cortex founder and managing director Chris Hold said collecting reliable information from the drill rigs would not have been possible without help from the ifm control systems.

“Exploratory drilling is one of the harshest environments you can get on the planet,” Hold said. “Electronic equipment in such applications need to withstand extreme heat, high pressured water, fluctuating power and other such issues.

“One of the prime reasons that Cortex works so closely with ifm is the robustness of their equipment under difficult working conditions.”

Hold said using the ifm technology to collect data in real-time, the Cortex SYNAPSE system provides the rig operators full oversight over the entire fleet of rigs.

“The real-time data stream allows the operations and maintenance crews located in the metropolitan areas to react to systems alarms and incidents within seconds, often before the operators of the rig are aware of a problem being present,” he said.

Predictive maintenance is especially critical in mining and quarrying operations that take place in remote areas. If there’s an issue with one piece of equipment, technicians need to drive or fly to the remote site to fix the problem, causing considerable loss in downtime.

While a lot of the sensors and controllers in mobile equipment have more or less similar functions as those used in fixed industrial equipment, ifm’s ecomatmobile series control systems are designed to withstand the rugged environments of mining and quarrying sites.

Aditya Kunder, ifm Australia’s mobile industry sales manager, said all ecomatmobile series products, including controllers, input/ 26

Quarry August 2020

To avoid vehicle collision, reliable sensors need to be installed in strategic locations on the vehicle body and the information from these sensors should be effectively communicated to the driver.

output (I/O) modules, sensors and cameras, have been designed to withstand extreme conditions (eg heat, cold, moisture, dust and vibration) to offer maximum reliability in any harsh environment.

“When we are talking about applications such as drilling or trucks operating on a mining site, we are dealing with high temperature variations, as well as shock and vibration.

While the same systems traditionally used for fixed machinery were implemented on mobile machines, these systems cannot withstand the extreme conditions that mobile machines are exposed to,” Kunder added.

Kunder said that apart from predictive maintenance, ifm’s ecomatmobile control systems are used extensively for collision avoidance on mine and quarry sites.

“Quarry sites are often dusty environments and it’s difficult for the driver to see individuals, particularly when reversing the vehicle. The ifm 3D sensor detects the reflection from the individuals’ vests and sounds an alarm for the operator to stop,” Kunder said.

To avoid vehicle collision, reliable sensors need to be installed in strategic locations on the vehicle body to effectively convey information to the driver.

A key component for collision avoidance in the ecomatmobile series is the O3M photoelectric 3D sensor, which measures the distance between the sensor and the nearest surface point by point using the time-of-flight

principle. The unit illuminates the scene with an external infrared light source and calculates the distance by means of the light reflected from the surface.

The O3M can be used in mines and quarries to detect any object the sensor is programmed to detect. For example, Kunder says, one quarry uses the O3M on its moving machines to detect the reflective vests of personnel.

Once a signal is produced by sensors, controllers need to respond quickly and reliably and provide the signal to actuators.

In addition, a graphical visualisation module ensures the indication of system messages and simple display instruments so the operator can be alarmed immediately.

From remote control of equipment to predictive maintenance and collision avoidance in mobile equipment, mines and quarries are using ifm sensors and control systems in a range of applications to enhance operational efficiency and safety.

Kunder said ifm Australia supports its customers with any technical requirements or demonstrations to make sure the solutions deliver what the customer needs.

“The ifm technical team can implement solutions for customers that bear the optimum results,” he said. “We work with our customers to integrate our solutions with their existing systems to deliver the best results.” •

By Tara Hamid

THE CLEAR CHOICE TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR DUST!

SUPPLIER ASSISTS CONTRACTOR AT VITAL TIME

We provide innovative site-specific, cost-effective solutions that will increase productivity and safety in the workplace.

Pro Crush’s Anthony Wilson (left) and Mark Delorna with the new John Deere 844L wheel loader.

P

ro Crush, a Queensland-based mobile crushing and screening business, has continued its operations during COVID-19 thanks to support from suppliers such as RDO Equipment.

Based on the Gold Coast, Pro Crush has specialised in mobile crushing and screening for the construction and mining industries for 13 years.

Pro Crush owner Richard Hill said industry support for his business has been vital during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There’s still a sense of uncertainty, which isn’t a great feeling for a business owner, but longer term we’re looking okay, and hopefully there won’t be too much of a major impact to the business,” he said. “Suppliers like RDO Equipment make me feel secure because I know they have my back during this time and will be there on the other side of this for us, too.”

Hill founded Pro Crush in 2007 and has grown its machine capacity to a point where it now provides full contracting with more than 50 mobile crushers and screens.

He recently bought a John Deere 844L wheel loader from RDO to add to the fleet.

“I liked the sound of how RDO were setting up their business here and how they treat their customers,” Hill said. “I

can see a lot of effort has been put into establishing them in the Australian market, so I was keen to give them a go and see for myself.

“The size of the machine was exactly what I was looking for, as we’ll be using it for stockpiling crushed material, loading dump trucks and other general duties, so it needs to be tough, productive and durable.

“One thing the operators and I have noticed that really stands out is the cab. The drivers are always comfortable, thanks to simple things like the extra legroom, air conditioning and a heated seat. The visibility is great as well.”

Hill said RDO Equipment has lived up to its reputation of supplying the upmost support for its customers.

“The team at RDO have been great to deal with,” he said. “They’ve always been upfront and honest with any questions I’ve had, and really helpful with machine delivery and handover. And I know they’re there now for any tech or service questions I may have. I’ve noticed they go the extra step for their customers, which I really appreciate.” RDO Equipment is the distributor for John Deere earthmoving plant and equipment in all states and territories except Western Australia. • Source: RDO Equipment/John Deere Construction & Forestry Equipment

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LOAD & HAUL

TRUCK UNLOADING, CONVEYING SYSTEMS MINIMISE HANDLING COSTS

The cost of aggregate delivery, transport and handling via truck or loader is at record levels.

One way of streamlining unloading, stockpiling and storage methods, ensuring efficient delivery, and eliminating additional handling costs is through truck unloading and conveying systems.

T

ruck unloading systems improve cycle times, increase safety, minimise loader use, and guarantee product quality by removing any extra handling of material. Plus, when using truck unloaders in combination with automated telescoping radial stacking conveyors, the payback is even greater in product quality control and costs per tonne savings.

It is a common sight in many quarries around Australia to see fleets of small dump trucks or road-going trucks transporting material from beneath stockpile conveyors to larger stockpiling and storage areas located many hundreds of metres away from the processing plant.

Whilst the original quarry plant design may not allow for the complete elimination of rehandling materials, significant savings may be made at the delivery side/larger stockpile end.

The use of a RazerTail truck unloader and a Telestacker conveyor, both manufactured

by Superior Industries, allows quick and easy transfer of material from the trucks into the larger stockpiles.

A RazerTail truck unloader typically allows the unloading and transfer of up to 25 tonnes of material in just minutes without the truck driving up a ramp on the stockpile. As the truck unloads at ground level, large savings are made in fuel, maintenance of brakes, drive trains and tyre wear, compared to running the truck and/or loader up and down the stockpile.

The ground level truck unloading increases safety as the truck and additional loader are not required to run up and down the stockpile ramp. The use of the Superior Industries “drive over” truck unloader configuration, with patented on-board hydraulic folding transport and loading ramps, also allows the use of single or multi-combination trucks and trailers.

Superior’s unique dual lane Razertail truck unloader allows continual unloading, 28

Quarry August 2020

A Razertail truck unloader transfers material to a Telestacker conveyor.

stockpiling and ship-loading through further reduction of truck cycle times.

As the RazerTail truck unloader and Telestacker conveyor are fully on-site mobile units, the whole operation can easily be moved within the site, typically in a couple of hours.

Depending on site logistics, these higher and safer constructed stockpiles can sometimes eliminate more than loader and operator from the rehandling process.

The reduction in loaders offers significant operational savings on labour, fuel and maintenance.

The reduction in truck cycle time can also reduce the need for one or more trucks, depending on where the stockpiles are located within the quarry. There is an additional improvement in safety initiatives via the elimination of traffic congestion between multiple trucks and loaders where accidents may commonly occur.

PRODUCTIVE COMBO When combining a RazerTail truck unloader with a TeleStacker conveyor, there is even greater control over product quality control and cost per tonne savings.

Telescoping radial stacking conveyors

ensure stockpile quality by building a desegregated stockpile and preventing the compaction or contamination typically seen when using trucks or loaders to build stockpiles.

A standard radial stacker can help minimise stockpile segregation but it cannot overcome it. An automated telescoping radial stacker is the only solution to creating a fully desegregated stockpile. It stockpiles in very thin lifts or layers, with each layer consisting of a series of windrows of material.

To accomplish this, the conveyor is in continuous motion, so automation is highly preferred over manual operation.

The telescoping conveyor consists of a conveyor (stinger conveyor) mounted inside an outer conveyor of similar length. The stinger conveyor can move linearly along the length of the outer conveyor, thereby varying the location of the discharge pulley. The height of the discharge pulley is variable as well as the radial position of the conveyor.

The three-axis variation of the discharge pulley is essential in making the layered pile that overcomes segregation. The Telestacker conveyor offers the leading solution for creating a desegregated stockpile.

Automated telescoping radial stacking

conveyors also provide increased stacking capacity over standard radial stackers. Up to 30 per cent more material can be stockpiled under a telescoping stacker compared to the same length fixed radial stacker. This is particularly important where users wish to maximise stockpile volume on limited site storage footprints.

Each user can also program the telescoping radial stacking conveyor to create stockpiles in many different shapes, sizes, and configurations. This unlimited stockpiling flexibility results in higher production capacity at a lower cost.

888 Crushing & Screening Equipment is the leading supplier of mobile telescopic/ Telestacker conveyors in Australia for quarrying, mining and mobile ship-loading applications. Superior Industries has sold more than 1450 Telestacker conveyors around the world.

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Efficient material transfer will significantly lower costs.

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The stackers are supplied with heavy-duty US-made components which have been well proven in many harsh Australian conditions to outperform and outlast most conveyor equipment from other manufacturers.

The Telestacker conveyor is typically a 15 to 20 per cent heavier duty construction than other brands and as 888CSE carries one of the largest stocks of spares in Australia, it can offer the best after sales support in the industry. 888CSE fully assembles and test runs all its mobile conveyors prior to delivery (with no hidden costs). The Telestacker

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conveyors have been supplied into nearly all states and territories in Australia, with many references available from private and public companies.

888CSE currently has stock in Australia of both single lane and dual lane RazerTail truck unloaders as well as 46m long Telestacker conveyors for immediate sale or long-term hire across all states and territories.

The Telestacker will typically stack at least 50 per cent more material than any other advertised “Model 140â€? telescopic conveyor from other suppliers. • Source: 888 Crushing & Screening Equipment

ROAD TRUCKS

BORAL LOGISTICS INVESTS IN SIDE TIPPER ROAD TRAINS

B

oral Logistics has recently replaced its aged fleet of side tippers to distribute its quarry products throughout Western Queensland.The company has turned to vehicle supplier MaxiTRANS, investing in a new AZMEB door side tipper road train combination to perform the task, safely and efficiently.

The AZMEB door side tipper AB-triple road train combination is the first of multiple vehicles to be delivered to Boral Logistics. The first unit has been put to work in the longdistance delivery of quarry material throughout Western Queensland from the Boral Wellcamp Quarry. Boral operates about 70 quarries — metropolitan and regional — throughout Australia. The Wellcamp Quarry, west of Toowoomba, extracts and processes a wide range of products, particularly highly specified road base aggregate.

Wade Clark, the operations manager of Boral Logistics Queensland, said Boral’s road train combinations play an important part of the transport logistics operation on the Darling Downs and beyond. Adding the AZMEB trailers will fill the need for its side tipper application.

“Our current road train fleet is entirely AZMEB and for investment in a combination like this, it is very important we invest in a known product” Clark said. “For us, we stuck with the brand we knew and trusted.

“The existing fleet of AZMEB trailers are in the order of 25 years old. We know they are reliable, we know that the product works. It comes with longevity, so we wanted to reinvest in a product that we knew worked extremely well for Boral’s needs.”

According to Clark, Boral’s driving design criteria was longevity, safety, fit-forpurpose and interchangeability with the multiple combinations.

30

Quarry August 2020

Unique to the design, AZMEB door side tippers distribute the load quickly and evenly with a single, doubleacting hydraulic cylinder at each end of the bowl.

“We can move the two B-trailers from front to back,” he said. “The A-trailer has a sliding turntable that allows us to conform to our bridge formulas and axle measurements. This is so we can load full mass, whether as an AB-triple or as a B-double. Even as a single, we conform to load and mass requirements.”

The Toowoomba region is open to Type 1 road trains which means the AZMEB combination can be loaded and run west directly out of the quarry without a requirement to split up the combination.

AZMEB door side tippers are built in one piece from a 450-grade wear plate, which increases the strength and eliminates the need for cross-members. Unique to the design, the door side tippers distribute the load quickly and evenly with a single double-

acting hydraulic cylinder at each end of the bowl. Large capacity hydraulic hoses and valves maintain the rapid, yet smooth, tipping action.

For Boral, side tipping is essential for a safer and more productive operation.

“A lot of our road base jobs are on the main highways west of Toowoomba,” Clark said.

“The big benefit we can offer customers is that power lines don’t phase this combination and we are not limited by uneven ground.

We can basically pull up on the side of the highway and tip straight off the edge of the road. Also, by running out the material in an even flow it reduces the work time required for customer grader drivers.”

Safety is integral to the Boral operating philosophy. Telescopic ladders are fitted

for the driver to use when hooking up or changing trailers. The addition of handrails provides three points of contact all the way through the climbing process.

The drawbar of the tri-axle dolly is painted in high visibility yellow as a safety measure for all road users. Non-slip surfaces are used on walkways wherever the driver must work on the trailers.

As the Queensland operations manager for Boral Logistics, Clark is more

than happy with the working relationship with MaxiTRANS. “The team at MaxiTRANS were terrific,” he said. “They listened and worked with us to deliver to our requirements.” He added that the convenience of the vehicles being locally manufactured in Brisbane enabled Boral to be closely involved in the whole build process, in turn fostering a close partnership with MaxiTRANS. MaxiTRANS is one of Australia’s largest

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SAFETY

BRADY REPORT ON QUEENSLAND QUARRY FATALITIES EXPLAINED

As part of an educational session for the quarrying industry, forensic structural engineer Dr Sean Brady has presented his recommendations on how the industry can reduce its fatality, serious accident and high potential incident rates. Nickolas Zakharia reports.

I

n an Institute of Quarrying Australia webinar on Wednesday, 24 June, Dr Brady presented the findings of his report – Review of all fatal accidents in Queensland mines and quarries from 2000 to 2019 – and how it related to quarries. The report, which was released earlier this year, provides an independent analysis of Queensland’s mining and quarrying fatalities, serious accidents and high potential incidents (HPIs) across a 20-year period.

It made its way to the Queensland Parliament in February, ahead of the state’s new provisions to mine and quarry manslaughter laws.

The report assessed 47 of Queensland’s industry-related deaths between 2000 to 2019. There were six fatalities in quarrying across a 20-year period, four being employees and two being contractors. A total of 35,000 incidents were also analysed.

Dr Brady, who is the managing director of forensic engineering consultancy Brady Heywood, calculated the frequency of the deaths, serious accidents and HPIs in terms of incidents per million hours worked.

“We took the hours worked and calculated the fatality rate, and when you do that , excluding metalliferous and coal exploration, you find that quarrying becomes number one on the list,” he said.

“You are statistically more likely to have a work-related fatality in a quarry than anywhere else per million hours worked, and its head and shoulders above the rest of the resources industry.”

To help promote the findings in the report, 32

Quarry August 2020

Figure 1. The frequency rate of serious accidents by sector by worker type. According to Brady, serious accidents are one of the more accurate forms of incident data in quarries.

the IQA organised the webinar, where Dr Brady provided attendees with a further explanation on what needs to be changed to improve health and safety practices and reduce fatalities and serious accidents.

ANALYSING THE DATA Figures were revealed in Brady’s report, which analysed serious accident data from 2011 onwards.

“In 2018-19, quarries have faced a serious accident frequency rate of around three (3.0) per million hours worked compared to the industry average of around one (1.0) accident per million hours worked,” Brady explained.

“Certainly, quarries are above average in

terms of fatalities and they’re above average in terms of serious accidents.”

The decline in HPIs in the same period suggests safety issues are going unreported in quarries.

Serious accidents, according to Brady, are one of the more accurate forms of incident data in quarries due to a third party determining if a serious accident has occurred (see Figure 1).

“The serious accident data is reasonably accurate because you have a third party medical practitioner making the decision as to whether or not someone has had a serious accident when they decide to admit them to hospital.

“I believe there is quite chronic underreporting of HPIs,” Brady said. “For every million hours worked, there’s 23 HPIs reported to the regulator.”

According to Brady, that equates to around 1.4 HPIs per person over a 30 year-quarrying career — and it seems highly unlikely the number is this low in reality.

If underreporting is occurring in the quarrying industry, as compared to the rate of HPIs in underground coal mining, Brady suggests it ties back to the reporting culture in the workplace. “It’s going to come back to reporting culture whatever way you slice and dice it,” he said.

Brady also noted cumbersome processes involved in reporting HPIs to the regulator can discourage reporting among quarries.

“I think there’s a fear that the regulator is going to jump all over you because the number of reports you submit goes up, so this can discourage reporting,” he said.

“The other factor that can discourage reporting is when people report a hazard or

Figure 2. The comparison of the frequency rates of HPIs vs serious accidents. Brady believes this data points to chronic underreporting of HPIs.

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SAFETY

incident but see effective controls aren’t put in place. There’s a possibility people may think ‘why bother?’”

Despite the report revealing quarries have a higher frequency rate for serious accidents in 2018-19 compared to other resources sectors such as coal mining, the HPI rate for quarries dropped last year (see Figure 2). Brady believes this apparent difference in behaviour between the serious accident reports and HPIs is significant.

“If you believe there is no underreporting happening – in other words, if someone finds themselves in a HPI-type situation, they report it – this would suggest that coal exploration, coal underground and metalliferous exploration are more hazardous than quarrying,” Brady explained.

“But if you ask ‘Do I believe underreporting is happening?’ then another way to view this graph is that coal exploration and coal underground have higher reporting rates because they have a better reporting culture.

“Since 2014-15 the number of HPIs reported per million hours worked in quarries increased up until last year. Last year, the serious accident rate has jumped up — the percentage of people put in the hospital has increased — but the number of HPIs has decreased. That suggests to me that there’s underreporting occurring in the HPI data.”

Serious quarrying accidents were blamed on ineffective controls (47 per cent) and hazards not being identified (29 per cent).

CAUSE FOR CONCERN Many people may feel that there is always one big cause for a fatality, but Brady stressed that out of the 47 fatalities analysed there is “rarely one thing”.

“We’re talking about combinations of factors, like failure of controls, lack of training, or inadequate supervision,” he said.

The report uncovered that 17 of the 47 fatalities involved a lack of specific training, with a further nine having inadequate training.

“We’re not talking about general training, for example we’re talking about where a person was using a piece of equipment and hadn’t been trained,” Brady said. “So you add 17 and 9 together and you find that 26 of the 47 fatalities (a significant percentage) were training-related.”

A total of 32 of the 47 fatalities recorded required supervision. “Of those 32, 25 had inadequate or a lack of supervision,” Brady said. “In some cases, the supervisor wasn’t present and in some cases the level of supervision was inadequate.”

34

Quarry August 2020

Figure 3. Industry-wide, 45 per cent of serious accidents were due to ineffective controls.

Figure 4. About 47 per cent of serious accidents in quarries related to ineffective controls.

Ineffective controls as a cause of serious accidents is the third and final area Brady discussed in the online seminar. Industrywide, 45 per cent of serious accidents were due to ineffective controls (see Figure 3), with 47 per cent of serious accidents in quarries relating to ineffective controls (see Figure 4).

“In addition, it appears that the quarrying industry is a little more likely to bypass controls than some other sectors of the mining industry,” he said.

After speaking to people in the industry, Brady noted that the quantity of paperwork required in the industry was raised as a concern.

“The level of paperwork that the quarries have to do is significant from a safety perspective. People say it gets in the way of being out and about, walking round the quarry, watching people doing the work and ensuring the work is done in a safe manner.

“One person said if you’re a big mining company with hundreds of employees, you need this paperwork – you need these systems to cope with that many people – but some of those structures and requirements ‘are forced on us as quarries and that’s what gets in the way of actually being out there and

ensuring the work is done in a safe manner’.”

TACKLING FATALISM Mistakes are unavoidable in the workplace and Brady suggested that having the correct systems as a failsafe was essential if a person doesn’t follow correct protocol.

“You need to be very careful about blaming human error,” he said. “When you blame human error, you’re missing the opportunity to identify the controls that were ineffective.

“You have to assume that humans are fallible, that they will make mistakes and the goal of every failure investigation should be to identify the controls that failed.

“Further, mining and quarrying is dynamic – things change, sometimes all the time,” Brady said. “You need to constantly be on top of ‘are your controls still going to work?’”

Administrative controls are another area that can work against health and safety practices in a quarry.

“I think that an over-reliance on administrative controls is a massive problem in the industry,” Brady said. “They’re easier to bypass or not follow perfectly. And when this happens, human error can be blamed.

“Also, it’s hardly a reward when you say

through all levels in organisations from the frontline to all the way up.

“But the reality is that there’s plenty of other hazardous industries that do not tolerate these hazards causing harm. In the airline industry, if you think about it, flying aeroplanes is potentially incredibly hazardous, yet it’s also incredibly safe. We expect it to be safe, I’m not sure we expect the same from the mining industry.”

Brady mentioned one effective method used by the airline industry to manage safety is introducing dual reporting of incidents.

“Within the airline industry, pilots and air traffic controllers understand the incredible value there is in reporting and following up on these reports. Yet they still use a dual reporting system, which means that even if the person who made an error doesn’t want to report it, they know the other person is going to report it anyway.

“When you talk to people in the mining industry, people express the view that it’s simply a hazardous industry. That’s taken as

a given. And society’s view appears to be the same – that the mining industry is hazardous.

“I don’t think people expect to go to work and get hurt, but I think there’s a general perception that this is what happens.”

The Brady Review can be downloaded from the Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mining and Energy website: dnrme.qld.gov.au/mining-resources/ initiatives/safety-reset For more information about Brady Heywood, visit bradyheywood.com.au •

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‘Please tell us all the hazards’ and then you reward them with a procedures book that’s twice as thick as when they started.

“If you’re implementing more and more administrative controls, you’re multiplying the amount of information you expect an individual to learn, retain and have top of mind when they need it. How much retention that is occurring is questionable.

For example, if you set up an induction and you’re under the assumption that the person will understand, remember and be able to implement everything you’ve taught them, that could be a dangerous assumption to make.

“Nobody wants a thicker procedures book, that’s not the solution.”

Brady has provided the industry with several solutions to combat dire trends that the resources industry at large faces. “The level of fatalism in the industry is a real thing,” he said. “In the industry, there’s a general view that mining is just an inherently hazardous industry. I’ve seen that view expressed

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SAFETY

THE IMPACT OF NEW RCS EXPOSURE STANDARDS ON QUARRYING OPERATIONS As COVID-19 dominates the safety landscape, quarries are being urged not to lose sight of other OHS considerations – particularly compliance with revised exposure standards to airborne diseases like respirable crystalline silica. Damian Christie reports.

O

ccupational lung diseases have long occurred in workers that have been exposed without sufficient protection to certain industrial materials in the workplace. Pneumoconiosis in particular can occur due to an accumulation of dust in the lungs, and the most common of these diseases are asbestosis, silicosis and coal workers’ pneumoconiosis (CWP, also more commonly known as black lung disease).

Pneumoconiosis can be exacerbated further by smoking and can lead to chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases (COPD), including bronchitis, emphysema and lung cancer.

Historically, silicosis is believed to have afflicted miners and extractive workers since the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans. Lung problems from inhalation of dust was written about in European medical journals dating back to the 17th century before physician Achille Visconti (1836-1911) coined the term “silicosis” (from the Latin silex, or flint), better known in the industry today as respirable crystalline silica (RCS).

Inevitably, the incidence of silicosis in workers increased with the industrialisation of the mining and extractive industries in the 19th and 20th centuries. Up to 55,000 workers globally died from silicosis in 1990.

Although annual numbers have declined, as of 2013, the global annual total stood at around 46,000. The decline has been more noticeable in developed countries such as the United States; in 1968, more than 1000 workers per annum in the US died of the disease but by 2005, this number had dropped significantly to 170 per annum.

It has been established that RCS can be found in most rocks, sands and clays, as well as end products such as concrete, bricks, blocks, pavers and cementitious materials. The dust is often produced through high energy processes such as crushing, drilling, sawing and grinding.1 In Australia, inaccurate historical data about RCS makes it difficult to estimate 36

Quarry August 2020

A mobile crushing circuit after a dust suppressant foam has been employed. Regulatory authorities do not recommend workers be within the vicinity of processing plant, even if they are wearing PPE.

just how many workers in the extractive industries have suffered from the disease in the past century. According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, the death rate for pneumoconiosis (including RCS) has fallen since the 1950s when the male age-standardised rate peaked at 3.9 deaths per 100,000 population. In the period 1980 to 2005, the mortality rate was less than one per 100,000 population. The sharp decline and levelling of the mortality rate was attributed to decreased exposure to hazardous dusts and the time lag between exposure and death.2 However, while pneumoconiosis and other respiratory diseases were thought to have been almost eliminated by the turn of the 21st century, they have never really disappeared and still remain a risk to workers when adequate controls are not in place. According to the Australian Cancer Council, 587,000 Australian workers were exposed to silica dust on the job in 2011, and about 5758 of that cohort is expected to develop lung cancer in the future from that exposure.3

More recently, hazardous dust diseases were thrust into the spotlight because of two separate cases: 1. The diagnosis of CWP in 21 Queensland coal workers. The Queensland Parliament conducted an inquiry into the re-identification of CWP in 2017. It established that CWP in Queensland was never “eradicated”, it merely had not been detected or identified by responsible Queensland authorities for more than three decades. Of the 68 recommendations in the report, there was a strong emphasis on improving the regulatory regime.4 2. The identification of 35 Queensland stone masons (particularly in the artificial stone benchtop industry) with RCS, on top of other cases identified in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT, in late 2018. The Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt called on the states to consider the formation of a national dust diseases register.5 Partly in response to the above cases, in late 2019, the statutory body Safe Work Australia, with the support of the Council of Australian Governments

(COAG) health ministers, developed new Workplace Exposure Standards for Airborne Contaminants (WESFAC) to protect workers across the mining, quarrying, construction and masonry industries from airborne contaminants, including RCS. The body recommended that the WESFAC be reduced by half – from the eight-hour time-weighted average (TWA) of 0.1 milligrams per cubic metre (mg/m3) to 0.05 mg/m3 under the Work Health and Safety Regulations 2011.6 This was a further reduction in the WESFAC, which was introduced in 2005 at 0.2mg/m3.

The COAG ministers unanimously agreed to implement the new standard, which required changes to the harmonised Work Health & Safety Act in each jurisdiction.

As a follow-on to point 2 above, the Federal Government also convened a National Dust Disease Taskforce in June 2019 to investigate the “emerging trend of new cases� of RCS in workers. It committed $5 million to support the Taskforce and related measures, including the

its final report until 30 June, 2021.

While the management of dust is a vital issue for quarries, not all quarries will lead to exposure to RCS for workers. The level of risk will depend on the concentration of RCS in the rock, processing methods and the controls used at the site.

An X-ray of uncomplicated silicosis in the lungs.

establishment of a National Dust Diseases Register, and new research to support comprehension, prevention and treatment of occupational dust diseases.7 The Taskforce, which was initially chaired

by Professor Brendan Murphy, the most recent national chief medical officer in the coronavirus response, has stalled due to COVID-19 and is now not required to deliver

ACROSS THE JURISDICTIONS With the exception of Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania, the revised WESFAC took effect in most jurisdictions of Australia from 1 July, 2020. Victoria was the earliest adopter, with the WESFAC being introduced on 17 December, 2019.

So what does the new workplace exposure standard for RCS mean for quarrying and other extractive operations? It will depend on where each operation is based and how quickly the abiding jurisdiction will introduce and enforce the exposure standard.

As the NSW Resources Regulator’s chief inspector of mines Garvin Burns told Quarry in late 2019, quarries must undertake a

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multi-tiered approach to managing dust.

“First, you manage or eliminate it at its source if you can,” he said. “If you can’t, then you suppress it. And if you can’t eliminate or suppress it, then you keep people out of it.”

Burns’ remarks came after a targeted intervention into airborne dust in more than 20 quarries by the NSW Resources Regulator in late 2019 resulted in numerous improvement notices and notices of concern. He said that inspectors were particularly disappointed that there was a singular reliance in these operations on personal protective equipment (PPE) as a risk control for respirable dust and the misunderstanding that employees could work in heightened dust conditions if they were wearing PPE. The intervention program was launched after a review of dust monitoring results in May 2019 indicated some quarry workers were being exposed to dust at levels above the prescribed WESFAC limits.

“Some [operations] did have good controls in place in terms of things like sprays and screens and hoods, and workers understood the importance of these being in place,” Burns said. “Some quarries also reacted very quickly to the notices that were issued to them. In a very short period of time they had actually gone and implemented quite good dust controls, with regards to putting hoods on transfer points on conveyors, fitment of sprays, and conveyor transfers and sprays on stockpiles.

“But we also had operations where there were piles of dust under rollers and conveyors, float dust that was piled up a foot deep, and that dust is constantly getting disturbed when workers walk through those areas.”8 For the purposes of this article, Quarry contacted the regulator to determine if there had been any resolutions since the targeted intervention. A spokesman for Burns confirmed the NSW Resources Regulator had followed up on the notices issued during the intervention with no noncompliance issues identified.

“We have continued conducting airborne dust planned inspections at quarries, purchased three real-time dust monitoring devices to be used by inspectors during site inspections, and offered free dust monitoring for small mines that met the specified criteria,” the spokesman said.9 The representative added the NSW Resources Regulator in July released a 38

Quarry August 2020

The IQA’s RCS fact sheet on silicosis.

The IQA’s fact sheet on cabin integrity.

new list of compliance priorities to the end of 2020 that incorporates airborne contamination, including RCS, and dust control. It announced the project would be multi-faceted, incorporating site assessment and engagement with the extractive industry through a variety of mediums, including information sessions and training workshops from July to November (due to COVID-19, many of these sessions are likely to be virtual).10 The regulator also said it would continue to regulate as per the policy position outlined

in its March 2020 discussion paper.11 The spokesman for Burns added that the regulator continues to develop and provide guidance to the quarrying sector about dust.

A toolkit to provide information, advice and guidance has recently been launched12 and the regulator publishes quarterly reports13 on mine safety performance, including issues about dust and highlighting good practice case studies and examples.

“In addition to these resources, a small mines regional roadshow is conducted every year which quarry operators are encouraged to attend,” he added. “Details of this year’s roadshow will be announced soon.”

The NSW Mine Safety Advisory Council (MSAC) has also recently launched a new awareness campaign to educate mine and quarry workers – Just because you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there – about the health impacts of dust and dust prevention measures. The campaign provides insights from health and safety, and industry officials, along with an online toolkit.14 The Resources Regulator’s compliance strategy and MSAC’s awareness campaign are all part of the NSW Government’s Silicosis Reduction Strategy, which, in addition to introducing the new WESFAC, has also mandated a ban on the dry cutting and grinding of stone and manufactured stone in the manufactured stone industry, and now requires medical practitioners to notify NSW Health of a diagnosis of RCS. Penalties will also apply for any organisation that fails to notify SafeWork NSW of an adverse health monitoring report.15 The Australian Capital Territory has taken a much stronger line of the six jurisdictions to adopt the new WESFAC, arguing that there should be further reductions to them in future. Suzanne Orr, the ACT’s minister for employment and workplace safety, has said the ACT Government is encouraging businesses to go lower as even at an eight-hour TWA of 0.05mg/m3, there is the potential for workers to still develop adverse health conditions.

“The recommended health-based exposure standard for silica dust is actually 0.02mg/m3 and the ACT Government will be working closely with other jurisdictions to further reduce workplace exposure standards over the next two years,” Orr said.

“As technology is better able to measure the lower standard of 0.02mg/m3, national work health and safety requirements should be decreased.”16 Similarly, WorkSafe Victoria also

recommends that while construction materials organisations should not exceed the TWA airborne concentration of 0.05mg/ m3, it recommends employees not be exposed to levels above 0.02mg/m3.17 The other jurisdictions have all pointed to various audit findings and compliance campaigns they have conducted in the past two years – in addition to adopting the revised WESFAC – as evidence of their support for reducing the incidence of RCS in extractive workers. Western Australia, which has only recently introduced its own mirror version of the Work Health and Safety Act (almost nine years after it was originally introduced by the Commonwealth), and Tasmania, which also follows the harmonised WHS Act model, are yet to announce when the revised workplace exposure standard for RCS will be introduced into their jurisdictions.

INDUSTRY RESOURCES All quarrying and extractive businesses

are encouraged to visit the websites of the relevant earth resources and safety regulators in their jurisdictions to learn more about how they can comply with the new workplace exposure standard for RCS and also engage in the campaigns those regulators are promoting.

Closer to home, the IQA and Cement Concrete Aggregates Australia (CCAA) can also provide educational materials that can assist construction materials businesses with revamping their safe work practices in line with the revised WESFAC. IQA President Shane Braddy told Quarry in late 2019 that quarries “need to understand the hierarchy of controls and ensure workers are protected.

The IQA is building on the guidelines available in industry and will be conducting very specific training in 2020”.18 The IQA has launched its RCS resources in the past few months. They include: • Awareness fact sheets and webinars that are available free of charge at the

IQA website – quarry.com.au19 • In-depth workshops to educate the industry on product exposure, health and safety, and compliance with the new exposure standards. The first of the workshops will be held on 8 October in Queensland (venue to be confirmed).

• Pending state COVID-19 restrictions, further workshops (or virtual workshops) will be released.

Like the IQA, the CCAA is offering similar resources, including its own guidelines, which were originally published in 2018 and updated earlier this year. The guidelines include a toolbox talk form for engaging workers. 20 Indeed, Garvin Burns cited the CCAA guidelines on RCS as an “extremely good resource” for quarry operations to follow when he spoke to Quarry late last year.

“If quarry operators were to pick up that guideline and read it properly and implement some of the recommendations in there, they would be in a much better place,” he said at the time.21 •

FOR SALE BLACK BUTT PIT - URALLA N.S.W.

Located 22Km west of Uralla, joining Kingstown Road. Armidale - 44Km. Tamworth 100Km. Freehold in two titles operating as one pit.

FOR FURTHER DETAILS Selling as a unit complete with sand processing plant and gen set.

500,000m Deposit of granite, gravel and sand material available approx 485,000m Graham MacDougall Washing plant through capacity 80-90 tonnes per hour.

0412 220 302 Crusher through capacity 90-100 tonnes per hour. graham@macdougall.com.au Granite gravel used as DGB - road construction and as a base for concrete.

Dan Fittler Sand used for redi-mix concrete - horse arenas - pipe fill.

0402 942 231 Decorative pepple used in landscaping. dan.fittler@macdougall.com.au Workshop container - oil container - gear shed and water tank.

Caravan complete with fittings as office.

TENDERS CLOSE THURSDAY OCTOBER 15 www.macdougall.com.au/property/black-butt-pit

SAFETY

REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

Taskforce. www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing. nsf/Content/ohp-nat-dust-disease-taskforce.htm

1 Workcover Queensland. Construction dust: Respirable crystalline silica. Last updated: 10 July, 2020. worksafe. qld.gov.au/construction/workplace-hazards/silicaexposure-a-serious-risk-for-construction-workers

8 Hume M. NSW regulator vows to prioritise dust control. Quarry 28(2); February 2020: 11. Originally published 1 December, 2019. quarrymagazine. com/2019/12/01/nsw-regulator-vows-to-prioritise-dustcontrol/

2 Australian Institute of Health & Welfare (AIWH).

Chronic respiratory diseases in Australia: Their prevalence, consequences and prevention. AIWH, August 2005. aihw.gov.au/getmedia/0f281915-2937-4015-a8d09abd3990f976/crdapcp.pdf.aspx?inline=true 3 Cancer Council. Silica dust. https://www.cancer.org. au/preventing-cancer/workplace-cancer/silica-dust.html 4 Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis Select Committee.

Inquiry into the re-identification of Coal Workers’ Pneumoconiosis in Queensland – Interim Report.

Report No. 2, 55th Queensland Parliament, 29 May 2017. parliament.qld.gov.au/Documents/TableOffice/ TabledPapers/2017/5517T815.pdf 5 Atkin M. Federal Government calls on states to undertake immediate investigation into silicosis risk.

ABC News; 18 October, 2018. abc.net.au/news/201810-11/federal-government-calls-for-investigation-intosilicosis/10365146 6 SafeWork Australia. Workplace Exposure Standards for airborne contaminants. 18 December, 2019. ISBN 978-1-76051-898-1 [Online PDF]. safeworkaustralia.gov. au/system/files/documents/1912/workplace-exposurestandards-airborne-contaminants.pdf 7 Federal Department of Health. National Dust Disease

9 Email from a spokesperson for NSW Resources Regulator Garvin Burns, dated 21 July, 2020.

10 Zakharia N. Resources Regulator to tackle health, safety risks in quarries. Quarry, 20 July 2020. quarrymagazine.com/2020/07/17/resources-regulatorto-tackle-health-safety-risks-in-quarries/ 11 NSW Resources Regulator. Revision to Silica Exposure Standard (Position Paper), March 2020. resourcesregulator.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_ file/0007/1207339/Position-Paper-Revision-to-silicaexposure-standard.pdf 12 NSW Resources Regulator. Take action to prevent dust disease toolkit. resourcesregulator.nsw.gov.au/ safety-and-health/about-us/advisory-council/msacdust-toolkit

15 SafeWork NSW. Crystalline silica. safework.nsw.gov. au/hazards-a-z/hazardous-chemical/priority-chemicals/ crystalline-silica 16 Silica WES halved across six jurisdictions. In: NSCA Foundation Ltd Safety-T-Bulletin. 8 July, 2020. nscafoundation.org.au/news-item/4994/silica-weshalved-across-six-jurisdictions 17 Dust containing crystalline silica in construction work. WorkSafe Victoria, 24 December 2019. https:// www.worksafe.vic.gov.au/dust-containing-crystallinesilica-construction-work 18 Hume M. NSW regulator vows to prioritise dust control. Quarry 28(2); February 2020: 11. Originally published 1 December, 2019. quarrymagazine. com/2019/12/01/nxsw-regulator-vows-to-prioritisedust-control/ 19 Institute of Quarrying Australia Fact Sheets. quarry. com.au/IQA/Education/Fact_Sheets/Public/Fact_Sheets. aspx?hkey=cd60f158-f0ea-40f1-a754-74d435566817

13 NSW Resources Regulator. Activity and safety reports. https://www.resourcesregulator.nsw.gov.au/complianceand-enforcement/business-activity-reports

20 Cement Concrete Aggregates Australia. Workplace Health & Safety Guideline: Management of Respirable Crystalline Silica in Quarries. September 2018. ccaa. com.au/imis_prod/documents/CCAA_Guidelines_for_ Quarries_web_spreads.pdf

14 Zakharia N. NSW promotes dust, health competency in quarries, mines. In: Quarry 28(7); August 2020: 12.

Originally published 3 July 2020. quarrymagazine. com/2020/07/03/nsw-promotes-dust-healthcompetency-in-quarries-mines/

21 Hume M. NSW regulator vows to prioritise dust control. Quarry 28(2); February 2020: 11. Originally published 1 December, 2019. quarrymagazine. com/2019/12/01/nsw-regulator-vows-to-prioritise-dustcontrol/

Fragmentation tests using electronic detonators exceeded all expectations.

DRILL & BLAST

HOW FOUR BECAME ONE

T

o many in the quarrying industry in Victoria and South Australia, the Impact Drill & Blast brand is a familiar name, as is NorthStar Blasting in the Northern Territory, Caruana Blasting in central and northern Queensland and Sequel Drill & Blast in southeast Queensland. These four successful, family-owned, businesses all began providing drilling and blasting services to the quarrying, mining and construction industries in the 1980s and 1990s.

Fast forward to April 2019 when the four became one – Impact Drill & Blast.

This is a story of four successful familyowned drill and blast companies, each with more than 30 years of knowledge and experience, being brought together under one name to provide a fleet of drills, explosives delivery trucks and blast crews anywhere in Australia. This means the days of having to deal with multiple contractors for drill and blast are over. Impact Drill & Blast provides a fully integrated service that is safe, professional and adds value.

Impact has a modern fleet of more than 40 drills, four mobile processing units (MPU) with trailers, a capacity of 21 tonnes of emulsion/ammonium nitrate blends, and two ANFO MPUs. Since the amalgamation, the new company has embarked on a program of change to provide value to its customers through the introduction of technology in all areas of the business: survey, blast pattern design, drilling, and initiation of explosives. Impact recently took delivery of its first GPS drill from Sandvik, which, coupled with the 3D drone surveying and 3D blast pattern design software means there is no need to do a traditional pattern mark-up. For Impact’s customers, this saves time and increases their productivity.

The coming months will see Impact commission its new emulsion plant in the Northern Territory to service the “top end” of Australia. Impact’s national operations manager Robert Payne said it is “the only emulsion plant in the Northern Territory and being centrally located will provide quarry and mining customers across the top end with a locally produced product and no risk of being cut off from supply during the wet season”.

Impact has formed strategic partnerships with companies that are leaders in their fields

Impact recently took delivery of its first GPS drill rig – the Sandvik DXi900 – which promises ‘no more dots on the ground’.

to access the best technology. One of these partnerships is with Davey Bickford ENAEX (DBE), a leader in the development and manufacture of electronic detonators. DBE has worked closely with Impact and its customers to deliver exceptional blasting outcomes.

One of Impact’s quarry customers west of Brisbane required an increase in fines material, reduction in oversize and improvement in its crusher throughput. The quarry has challenging geological conditions of jointed basalt intersected with soft strata bands, which in the past had not favoured the creation of fines. While the introduction of Impact’s RedStar emulsion had given much better results than ANFO, with more fines and less oversize, Impact and DBE believed there was still improvements that could be made using electronic detonators.

Impact designed a staggered blast pattern of 102mm holes loaded with RedStar 60/40 emulsion blend. The DBE engineers worked with Impact’s shotfirer to design an initiation sequence using interactive timing which would use the energy in each hole to work together to create more fines while meeting the environmental requirements for the blast.

The outcome of the blast exceeded the customers’ expectations and continues to this day. The introduction of electronic detonators with the RedStar emulsion reduced oversize to less than two per cent and increased fines significantly to improve crusher throughput by more than 100 tonnes per day. The improved

fragmentation also led to the removal of a secondary crusher. Another advantage of the change to electronic detonators was reduced back-break and pre-conditioning of the pit walls, improving safety for everyone in the pit.

In July 2020, Impact commenced drill and blast operations at a central Queensland quarry. The customer wanted suitable material for road base, with additional fines. The customer usually provides the drill and blast parameters but Payne put forward a proposal for Impact to do the drill and blast design. “The customer was sceptical because our designed powder factor was 18 per cent lower than their previous designs,” he said. However, 20 tonnes of RedStar emulsion was loaded in one day and fired using electronic detonators as the initiation system. The customer said it was the best blast they have seen at the quarry.

Impact’s customers are continuing to report reduced downstream costs and improved plant productivity, due to better blasting outcomes.

Safety is the key foundation of the Impact Drill & Blast operations. The move to DBE electronic detonators was as much to do with safety and security of the blast crew and the community as it was for blast outcome. Since March 2020, all blasting in Queensland has used electronic detonators and Impact has committed to using electronics for 100 per cent of its blasting activity by the end of 2020. • Source: Impact Drill & Blast

Quarry August 2020 41

IQA AWARDS

MARK BEVAN:

GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR JOB With a quarrying career spanning three decades, Mark Bevan has truly done it all. The Truro local has continued his path of industry growth since first receiving the 2018 Quarry Operator of the Year Award. Nickolas Zakharia reports.

I

t is often said that a positive life starts with enjoying what you do for work. After all, those who enjoy their jobs generally go on to become more successful in the long run.

Mark Bevan has just started a new role as quarry manager at Hallett Resources in Truro, South Australia. The 48-year old has an extensive history in the quarrying industry that goes as far back as 1997. To this day, Mark has not lost his passion for an industry that is rife in opportunity.

“I love it, I do love it,” he told Quarry. “I really like the variety and I do still to this day. I’ll be doing dust monitors one minute, entering the production figures another minute, and then checking on crushing systems like I was just doing with a belt weigher. I get a real kick out of it because it’s so varied.”

A LIFE IN QUARRYING Mark first started his quarrying career at Linke Contracting in the 1990s. He operated machinery including scrapers, dozers, wheel loaders and trucks.

During his time at Linke Contracting, Mark worked at the gypsum quarry (amongst other sites) in Blanchetown, South Australia.

Gypsum, a product commonly used in the agricultural industry, started Mark’s early understanding of sizing in regards to aggregates and rubbles.

“I was quite lucky because they [Linke] had a quite a large civil side doing roadways, wineries, things like that – and they also had a contract mining business,” Mark reflected. “I was lucky that I made myself learn everything so I could swap and change.”

Mark remained at Linke Contracting for 10 years and then moved to Penrice Quarry & Mineral in 2007, located in South Australia’s Barossa Valley. While at Penrice, he worked in a limestone quarry where he continued to grow his career, becoming a shift supervisor in the quarry’s production area.

Inclined to learn as much as possible, Mark completed a self-funded Certificate IV in 42

Quarry August 2020

Mark Bevan (right) received the Quarry Operator of the Year Award from IQA Past President Clayton Hill in September 2018.

Extractive industries at Box Hill TAFE while still working at Penrice. It was here that he met Randy Klemm, someone who would go on to become his mentor.

“An amusing fact was that Mark was supposed to do an end of course presentation that was only meant to go for 20 minutes but – including question time – lasted for one hour, such is his enthusiasm for the industry,” Klemm said in an IQA Awards nomination submission for Mark.

After a brief move to mining in Western Australia in 2011, Mark learnt the skills needed for weighbridge operations and blasting. He then decided to return to his studies at PolytechnicWA to complete his Quarry Manager’s Certificate.

He took his knowledge to Seelander Quarries where he worked as Klemm’s second-in-command. He was still based there when he received the IQA’s Quarry Operator of the Year award in 2018.

With a constant drive to learn and

experience more, Mark has most recently worked as a quarry manager at Boral’s Whyalla Quarry before moving closer to his family in Truro, where he now works for Hallett Resources.

FROM OPERATOR TO MANAGER Since Mark started his pursuit to become a quarry manager with his certificate at PolytechnicWA, the transition from quarry operator to manager has been significant.

Winning the Sydenham Hill Quarry Operator of the Year Award, sponsored by Retracom, brought attention towards several areas that Mark specialised in.

“That was everything from weighbridge operations through to laboratory skills, like taking samples, checking the PSDs on a shaker, dealing with customers and clients – and also suppliers and contractors about blast environments,” he said.

“At different times in my career I’ve been able to do the whole gamut of quarry

Mark Bevan has used a wide range of quarrying equipment over his 20-plus years working in quarries.

Mark Bevan first started his career in the quarrying industry in 1997 and still loves his job today.

After winning the IQA Quarry Operator of the Year Award, Mark and his wife had the chance to attend CONEXPO this year.

operations, from operating small five-tonne 125-tonne diggers to WA 900-wheel loaders.

I’ve also been able to do crushing, pug milling and screening – all of those different types of operations I’ve done at different times of my career, I was very lucky.”

Mark’s commendable focus towards his craft has earned him many successes in his 23-year-long career. He believes there is always room to improve and his move to quarry manager has raised some new challenges to the diverse working environment that he thrives in.

“It’s a huge jump,” he said. “The hardest part of my job is how to deal with staff and just people in general. I’m not naturally gifted.

I’m not one for having a huge presence about me. I have to work at everything I do – it doesn’t come naturally to me.

“People management is the biggest one for me and the financial side of things too was also a big thing for me.”

While at Seelander Quarries, Mark was actually helping Randy Klemm prepare an application for the 2017 awards.

“It was raining quite heavily at the quarry that day so I sat down with my mentor, Randy Klemm, who I worked with at Penrice and ended up working for him at Seelander Quarries,” Mark recalled.

“I started trying to get information together to put a submission in for him for Quarry Manager of the Year, and in the process, we got a heap of information for me together and we ended up going with the one that I did.”

As runner-up in the IQA’s 2017 Quarry Operator of the Year Award, Mark decided to have another shot a year later – which he ended up winning. “The beauty of it was it gave me another chance,” he said.

After winning the award in 2018, Mark went to Las Vegas’ 2020 CONEXPO/CONAGG in the United States, prior to the travel impacts of COVID-19 this year.

“I never realised how many different products are out there,” he said. “Everything from surveying through to environmental resources through to simple things like bucket teeth. They had whole batching plants set up, whole crushers set up. It was just mind-blowing, it really was.”

home at the end of the day – they don’t want people to get injured on site.”

Mark said his role as a quarry manager aims to minimise risks and strike a balance between production and safety.

“Because it is a high-risk environment, there will always be dangers, but it’s about minimising the risks,” he said. “From working out of a loader bucket when I first started, to moving track loaders around on the back of rock wagons, to now where everything is risk assessed,” Mark reflected.

“It was amazing to see that when I want to CONEXPO, the Americans were still behind us safety-wise. There is just a lot of more pinch points in their conveyors and different parts of machinery – whereas everything is risk assessed here. You’re looking for hazard IDs – it’s completely changed. It is a much safer industry because of it.”

Now working for Hallett Resources, Mark said he has been looking forward to being closer to his family, who have supported him through times where has worked hundreds of kilometres away.

“With Hallett, it’s about building a new team and being close to my family,” he said. “My kids are getting older too – I’ve got three kids; our daughter is 16 and the twin boys who are 14 at this point. It’s about spending some time with them.

“Previously, I got a day to a day and a half at home per week and the rest of the time I lived away. By working here in Truro, the quarry is literally five minutes from home.

It’s unbelievable.”

For more information about the IQA Awards, which will reopen for submissions and nominations in 2021, visit quarry.com.au •

WINNING THE AWARD Mark has been an active technical member of the IQA for more than a decade.

With a keen interest in expanding his industry wisdom, he paid to visit New Zealand for an IQA study tour and visited Toowoomba for the first time in 2017 for the IQA’s national conference.

“I had never been to Toowoomba in Queensland the first-time round,” he said.

“The study tour gave me an opportunity to go and see a different country as well as being around like-minded people enjoying what I do – crushing and screening and having a look at all the aspects of the quarrying over in New Zealand on the North Island.”

SAFETY FIRST CONEXPO also opened Mark’s eyes to another nation’s industry safety standards.

He believes safety in Australia’s quarrying industry is moving in the right direction.

“I think the awareness is there now – and it has been for a while,” he said. “People want to go home in the same way they went to work. Managers too want their staff to get

Quarry August 2020 43

SMART BUSINESS

DEVELOPING KEY ACCOUNTS FOR NEW AND EXISTING CUSTOMERS

Earlier this year, Mike Cameron outlined how key account planning could assist businesses to achieve new products and/or service solutions sales. He now turns his attention to how businesses can develop and finetune those Key Account Plans based on the attributes of the buyers they are approaching.

T

he previous article laid the foundation for understanding the importance of a good sales strategy – namely, to set yourself up in the right position, to be in the right place, with the right people, at the right time, with the right solution so that you can make the right tactical presentation to achieve your sales objective. However, to ensure a mutually beneficial transaction where both buyer and seller achieve gains, salespeople must create a framework through Key Account Plans that fosters a win-win situation and manages every sales objective as a joint venture.

A Key Account Plan (KAP) is required for those prospects that are most likely to buy from you and those who provide you and your organisation with the highest value return on your effort. These are your High Value Prospects (HVPs). A KAP has six important components (Table 1).

Effective key account management is based upon establishing and maintaining a synergistic relationship with your customers.

Dr Stephen R Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People defined “synergy” as “the principle of creative co-operation” and he stated that the development of an effective partnering relationship is dependent upon: • Mutual respect.

• Integrity.

• Trust.

• Comparable cultures and values.

• Openness.

• Communication.

The selection of sales professionals to develop effective KAPs is critical with the following diagram possibly assisting you to identify the key effectiveness issues facing your client relationship management planning.

The process of creating and managing a KAP has seven steps which can be clearly identified in the following diagram: Figure 1. The seven steps in the Key Account Planning process.

44

Quarry August 2020

1

Objective

A clear, specific and realistic statement (a SMART goal) of the sales outcome to be achieved for this particular customer.

2 3

Strategic focus Target

How broadly will this sales objective be achieved?

Whom will you need to influence in order to achieve this sale objective?

contacts 4

Core strategy

5

Competitors’

The specific benefits that you will promote so that this prospect/customer will use your organisation rather than your competitors’.

What are your competitors likely to do?

reaction 6

Action steps

What must be done to achieve your sales objective, by whom and by when?

Table 1. The six core elements of a Key Account Plan.

Table 2. A sales relationship diagram.

The seven key steps are (as outlined in Figure 1) are: Step 1 Decide what you are selling.

• Understand your sales objective.

Step 2 Test your position and identify buyers.

• Understand your customer base.

• Understand your customer’s organisational chart.

• Identify buyers.

Step 3 Rate and evaluate your buyers.

• Buyers’ roles.

• Buyers’ influence.

• Interest in your sales objective.

Step 4 Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats • Review alternative positions.

Step 5 Create an Action Plan •D raft and implement SMART action steps.

Step 6 Close the deal.

•E nsure that paperwork and your process is “painless”.

Step 7 Monitor and seek feedback.

OVERVIEW OF THE KEY ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT PROCESS

•M onitor delivery.

•C heck that delivery meets (or exceeds) the promise.

•S eek feedback from your customer’s buyers.

•R eview future business opportunities (eg in a Business Review and Development Meeting – or BRAD meeting).

•N urture the relationship.

WHAT ARE YOU SELLING? Positioning is a key to success in sales.

Determining where you are currently, deciding where you want to be and then planning on how to get there is a strategic evaluation process that you must learn to master if you wish to stay ahead of the game in today’s fast-paced and high demand business environment.

Understanding how to create, manage and maintain an effective KAP, for each of your target customers and future prospects, is the first stage in assisting you to establish a rewarding, more effective sales process.

You first need to review your list of existing customers and current prospects and then create a database with an individual sales objective for each of your target accounts.

Once you have drafted a sales objective statement for one of your target accounts, it is important that you check how you, others within the sales team and key stakeholders within your business, feel about this specific sales goal, prior to it being placed into this particular customer’s KAP. However, regardless of whether you have considered a number of alternative options, it is important to also appreciate that your initial sales objective statement really only represents your company’s preferred option – which has yet to be tested during upcoming meetings and discussions with your customer’s buyers.

IDENTIFYING BUYERS IN YOUR CUSTOMER’S BUSINESS Spending the time you have available with the right customers (ie those who will give you the greatest return on your time and investment) obviously makes a lot of sense.

This requires a combination of territory design and account prioritisation.

Territory design is used here in a broader sense than just the geographic one. It is very closely aligned with the concept of client segmentation but the approach you adopt from a sales point of view will frequently depend upon whatever you perceive to be the most significant differences between your customers, eg: • I f customers are generally locality-based, within specific regions, then establishing geographically-based territories may be

Figure 1. The seven steps in the Key Account Planning process.

the most appropriate sales management structure – depending upon the required call frequency. This is also the case when prospecting or lead generation requires a strong local networking presence.

•W here there are significant differences between the needs of customers within different industries, and the salespeople are expected to have skills and/or experience matched to those industries, it frequently makes sense to use vertical market-based territories.

• I f your customers require personalised support or service different to that expected in the above models and depending upon the size of their account, then the best approach may be to allocate territories based on account size (or the complexity of the sale proposal).

Of course, in many companies, there may be a need for a multi-dimensional approach (Figure 2) to territory design, as shown below: Prior to the allocation of a particular type of sales territory to any given salesperson, the choice should satisfy several criteria: •T he territory should match the knowledge, skills and personality type of the salesperson involved.

• I t should provide a fair level of potential business so that each salesperson is able to make a living as well as to ensure that no territories go under-served.

• I t should be designed with reasonable travel demands or acceptable ease of access.

•T aken together, it is obvious that whichever territory structure(s) you select you will need to cover your whole target market, or you may even need to reappraise your overall resourcing levels and review profitability.

Even with a perfect territory design, however, each salesperson will still need to prioritise their activities by account. The

Figure 2. The multi-dimensional approach to territory design.

old 80/20 rule (Figure 3) often applies – 80 per cent of your revenue will come from 20 per cent of your clients. So, it is critical that salespeople don’t waste their time on deals that won’t deliver.

THE CUSTOMER’S ORGANIGRAM The management of a KAP requires you to determine who the people are within your customer’s company, who will influence the buying decision and/or have an ability to impact (either positively or negatively) upon the outcome of your sale objective.

There is usually more than one person who has to give a recommendation, technical input, user evaluation or their approval before the sale can proceed.

An inability to identify the people involved in a customer’s decision-making process, the role they will/do play, and their personal and/or professional motivation is one of the major reasons why salespeople lose deals. It is critical that you, as a salesperson, identify all the players, understand their roles and the influence that they have on the buying decision.

We will call these people buyers.

The Organigram (Figure 4) outlines four types of buyer: 1. Economic decision-maker (with a large dollar value and/or complex sales there may be an additional buyer in the equation, The Ultimate Quarry August 2020 45

SMART BUSINESS

Decision-maker, eg a board of directors).

2. End users.

3. Technical decision-makers.

4. Advocates.

The economic decision-maker is the person who actually signs off on the deal. This person often doesn’t get involved in the detailed evaluation process but invariably they will want to know whether your product, service or solution will be good for the company’s bottom line. Even if everyone else is keen on the deal, this person has the final veto – and can say “Yes” or “No”. There may be an ultimate decision-maker, especially when very large dollars are involved, or the impact of the purchasing decision is complex or high risk.

The end user is the person (or people) who will actually use (or benefit from) the product, service or solution that you are selling. There are frequently multiples of this character and, while they don’t sign off on the deal, they each will have an opinion about your offering.

Whether they will use or supervise the use of your product or service, each end user will make judgements about the potential impact on their job or work-related performance. This means that their personal success is directly tied to the success of your solution.

There can also be multiples of the technical decision-maker. This person (or persons) is used as the “filter” and frequently will attempt to test out the quality, perceived value and/or validity of your solution or simply to screen out salespeople on technicalities. Their focus is on the product, service or solution and determining how well it meets specifications and to check that it meets with industry and/or company standards. While this person (or persons) cannot give a final “Yes”, they can certainly recommend a final “No”.

An advocate is the person who can or does lead you to other buyers who you cannot reach without their guidance or support. In fact, you may not even be aware of these additional buyers’ existence. An advocate can and/or will provide you with information that would be difficult to obtain, such as advising on the evaluation process that was used in the past for similar projects that received approval. They can identify difficult and/or challenging individuals and advise on the importance or relevance of the project to their company’s bottom line or strategic direction.

They understand who will be impacted by your solution, what the current or potential business issues are that need to be addressed, what language you need to avoid and what not to say. An advocate is the person who wants you to make the sale and therefore will guide you to the best of their ability and role placement.

There are some key points and 46

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Figure 3. The 80/20 effect.

learning experiences: • I t is critical that you identify and qualify all the people involved in influencing the buying decision and appreciate how they fit into one of the four buyer roles. An inability to recognise this important aspect of managing a Key Account, and implement appropriate actions, is the most frequent cause for losing a sale. In any event, it is likely to slow down the sales process or impact upon the determination of the overall viability of this particular business opportunity.

• I t is critical that you have to meet with all the buyers when the dollar value of the sale is large, the project is complex, or your customer perceives a high risk associated with “failure” due to the purchasing decision.

The bigger the cost of the transaction, the deeper the relationship you must have with the buyers in order to position yourself and/ or your company for the win. The “you” refers to yourself, as the key account manager, one of your teammates or a senior member of the management team; obviously, this becomes more critical when the sale’s value is high, and the solution is complex.

• I t is important to match people from within your management team with those in your customer’s business in relation to their management seniority and/or authority level.

Obviously, the larger the transactional value, complexity or risk, the more senior you should map your management team with theirs.

THE ECONOMIC DECISION-MAKER The economic decision-maker is the person who gives final approval to buy your product, service or solution. The role of this buyer is to release the funds to buy. This buyer is critical to the sale. The focus for them is not price but price performance. There is normally only one economic decision-maker per sale, apart from a few exceptions when an “ultimate economic decision-maker” may be the key player (this role may be played by a board, a selection committee or another body acting as a single entity. However, even in these bodies, there is someone who is more equal than the others).

Figure 4. A customer organigram outlines the types of buyers.

How to find the economic decision-maker: •W hen the dollar value of the sale is larger than “normal”, the further up the economic decision-maker will be within your customer’s organisation.

•P urchasing authority levels are tightened when the economic climate is tight, so the person usually making this decision will probably have to seek approval higher up the client’s organisation.

•P ast operational experience with you and your company may allow the decision to be made at a lower level – especially when you already have a successful “track record”.

•A lthough the decision may be made at a lower level, there are two key points to keep in mind: • T he greater the risk and/or lack of past operational experience, the higher up the decision will be made. • T he more experience that your customer has had with your product or service (even when it has been well received), the more they may feel obliged to ask some competitors to bid (in order to test out alternative solutions or to exert some pricing pressure on you).

END USERS The end users make judgements about the impact of the product, service or solution on their jobs. “On their jobs” is the key phrase – they are concerned about everyday operations.

The end users will ask you about the reliability of the product, service or solution. They will often look for a demonstration, an inspection of

a similar project or an opportunity to discuss concerns with a number of referees. They will frequently review ease of operation, maintenance and spares availability or similar inquiries. They will want to understand how it works or what changes your solution will make to their department and what impact it may have on safety, maintenance and staff morale.

An office-bound manager or others within the department may play the role of end user. However, there will always be at least one person who will play this role and, since the end users will live with your solution, and their daily success is linked to it, they are a key to the success of your sales offering.

TECHNICAL DECISION-MAKERS The technical decision-makers are frequently detail-focused, questioning and sometimes they may appear difficult to deal with. However, they want to ensure that your solution meets the specifications and standards that the company requires. They are usually aware of the purchasing limits, budgeting constraints, technical compliance, technical specifications and, of course, legal or contractual terms or other metrics, measures and criteria of the project or buying decision.

The technical decision-maker may come from purchasing, legal, finance, IT, production or other areas of the business, with the term “technical” referring to their professional or specialist expertise.

People playing the role of the technical decision-maker are usually harder to identify than those in other buyer roles. One reason for this difficulty is that a customer or prospect may use a consultant or outside agency to act as their technical decision-maker. If this person or company doesn’t want you or your solution, they can easily use standards or specifications to frustrate your efforts or, in the worst case, to block your entire sale.

An economic decision-maker may give the technical decision-maker semi-final authority by saying “you decide how this will work and what we should do”, resulting in that person acting as though they are the person with the final buying authority when obviously they are not.

ADVOCATES Information and/or feedback from your advocate(s) is a key to any sale. You must develop at least one advocate (although it is usual to have a number of them, whenever possible) who can provide you with insight and guidance to the inner workings of your customer’s business, especially as that may relate to your sales objective.

An advocate can: • Clarify and validate your sales objective.

• Identify and/or assist you to meet the people who are filling the other buyer roles.

• Assess the situation so that you are most effectively positioned with each of those people.

What an advocate cannot do is guarantee you will get the order.

You must be prepared to discuss and/or expand on your offering with all your buyers, as and when appropriate, not just selecting to sell only to the people you know or with whom you feel comfortable.

The best advocates are: • Those working for your client or prospect.

• Someone who is credible and knows the client organisation.

• In terms of credibility, if you can turn your economic decision-maker into your advocate, then you have the best solution.

• Someone who appreciates, or people who want, your solution.

Advocates also frequently exist within your own company or industry networks or other suppliers.

The first three buyer roles exist whereas advocates needs to be developed.

IDENTIFYING ALL YOUR BUYERS Write down the names of the people in each role – but small enough to allow you to add further information about each buyer as you gain clarity about their role and influence. The wrong way to do this is to simply list all the people you are calling on and fit them into the four boxes. Do not force-fit contacts into ECONOMIC: END USERS: these roles, eg: Releases $$$ Judge impact on job In a future article, we will review the ADVOCATES: TECHNICAL: next steps in the KAP Offer guidance Screens out process. This will proposals include identifying Table 3. A buyers’ chart. the strengths and weaknesses of buyers, developing a SWOT analysis, and understanding the concept of “stop signs” in the evaluation process. • Mike Cameron is an IQA member and the principal of Strategically Yours. Visit strategically.com.au

REFERENCES & FURTHER READING

1 Cameron M. Key account planning: The profile of an ‘ideal’ customer? In: Quarry 28 (04); April 2020: 36-39.

2 Covey SR. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Free Press, 1989.

IQA NEWS BRANCH COMMITTEE ROLES OFFER OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH, NETWORKING, LEADERSHIP SKILLS 10 REASONS TO BECOME AN IQA COMMITTEE MEMBER PASSION – Because you are passionate about your industry and the IQA. Help the IQA reach its goals.

DEVELOPMENT – Committee participation leads to uncovering business insights you can utilise in your professional and personal development.

You will develop a whole new skillset and improve skills you didn’t realise you had. Whether it’s chairing a meeting, coaching or mentoring or running an event, you will be able to add to your skill set.

PERSONAL BRAND BUILDING – Build your personal brand by getting involved.

It’s not about who you know anymore – it’s about who knows you! It also looks amazing on your CV. Employers look for these types of roles and the skills they show that you’ve developed on applications. They are a proven catalyst for job prospects.

A South Australian Young Members Network meeting in 2018. Being involved in a branch committee will mean you’ll know what’s happening before everybody else.

The new committee members will join the IQA at an exciting time as it works to support local branch events and implement the five-year strategic plan recently developed this year.

The IQA is committed to ensuring it continues to be a strong, attractive and relevant professional body, with an emphasis on networking, education and development for all of its members. If you share our drive and passion we want to hear from you.

Committee roles offer fantastic opportunities for individuals to develop leadership and strategic skills, working alongside fellow IQA members. Being a committee member is extremely rewarding and will grow your networks, support your personal brand and develop new skills in governance, leadership and negotiation. IQA committee members gain a lot through the ideas they share and the contacts they make across the quarrying and associated industries.

Being an active committee member is not 48

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onerous. Each branch committee is fully supported by a highly capable team of IQA staff.

As a committee member, you will attend regular meetings and share ideas on what events/ education is needed locally.

Expressions of Interest (EoIs) are invited from Members or Fellows of the IQA who can bring some of the following attributes: •K nowledge of good governance principles.

•K nowledge of the education sector and the work of other professional bodies.

•A n international perspective.

•E xperience of growing and developing a business, finance and auditing.

•S trategic development and planning skills.

•C ommunications and public relations experience.

For more information on branch committee vacancies and roles, contact Lisa Stromborg, tel 0403 291 996 or email qld-admin@quarry.com.au

LEADERSHIP OPPORTUNITIES AND EXPERIENCE – Experience how the IQA works and the effort that goes into growing the Institute. Through active participation on a committee, you will have the opportunity to someday become a board member.

RELATIONSHIPS/NETWORKING – Joining the IQA committee helps build stronger relationships with like-minded people.

TO LEAD THE FUN – As an IQA committee member, you are involved in organising activities and events to bring members together. There’s no better feeling than seeing your idea or event come to life.

PAY IT FORWARD – Give back to your industry by making a difference in committee involvement.

CONTRIBUTION – Contribute to the growth and future success of the IQA. GREATNESS – A chance for people to see you in action – and to show people how great you are!

INSIDER SNEAK PEAKS – You’ll know what’s happening before everyone else.

The Institute of Quarrying Australia

A SOBER REMINDER OF WHAT MUST BE DONE TO IMPROVE SAFETY On 24 June, the IQA hosted a webinar by Dr Sean Brady to discuss the key findings of a report he prepared that investigated all fatal accidents in Queensland mines and quarries from 2000 to 2019.

Although the report was commissioned by the Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, the webinar was extremely well attended by members of the industry, suppliers, regulators and numerous government departments across Australia. The depth and breadth of interest in the topic is a sober reminder of what we must do as an industry to improve safety. It is multi-faceted and involves people.

Dr Brady outlined that: • Occurrence of fatalities is cyclical and linked to vigilance.

• Supervision and safety are key factors in reducing fatalities.

IQA BRANCH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETINGS BRANCH

DATE CONFIRMED

IOQ

5pm, 29 Aug (Video conference)

ACT

TBA

NSW

TBA

Central West

TBA

Hunter

TBA

Illawarra

TBA

Northern Region

TBA

Nth QLD (inc Cairns)

10am, 26 Aug, Rowes Bay Golf Club, Townsville

Northern Territory

10am, 10 Sept (Venue TBA)

QLD & Cntrl QLD

6pm, 25 Aug, Brisbane Racing Club, Doomben Racecourse

SA

TBA

TAS

TBA

Vic Sub Branch

1.30pm, 13 Aug (Video conference)

VIC

4pm, 18 Aug (Venue TBA)

WA

TBA

• Industry needs to change its mindset from one of “expectancy” to nonacceptance or zero tolerance.

More about Dr Brady’s thoughts and findings can be found in the feature starting on page 32.

COVID-19 restrictions continue to be ever changing. The IQA is aligning activity with state requirements and where permissible will be resuming face to face events. Several branches will be holding their annual general meetings (AGMs) aligned to a dinner meeting, while other branches will be restricted to AGMs via video conference.

Regardless of how the AGM is held, establishing a strong local committee is extremely important. We have recently promoted the value of being involved in a committee and encourage people to nominate (see opposite page). Being a

UPCOMING EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES The following workshops and webinars have now been confirmed: •1 2 August 2020 – New South Wales Quarries – Compliance with the Mining Act 1992 (NSW) (webinar) •A ugust (Date TBC) - Industrial Manslaughter (webinar) •2 4 September 2020 – Learning from Disasters (online workshop) •2 8 October 2020 – Learning from Disasters (online workshop) A fully online course – Effective Risk Management – is also available on request.

For more information, tel 02 9484 0577 or email admin@quarry.com.au

committee member is extremely rewarding and will grow your networks, develop leadership and governance skills and share ideas and innovation. If you would like to be involved, please contact the IQA. The IQA’s AGM will be held via video conference on 29 September, 2020 from 5:00pm. This is the first time the AGM will be held via video conference. Notices will be sent to all members and this year the virtual platform provides a great opportunity for all members to attend.

KYLIE FAHEY CEO Institute of Quarrying Australia

IQA NEW MEMBERS GRADE NAME Member Associate Associate Associate Associate Associate Associate Associate Associate Associate Member Member Member Member Member Member Member Member Student T/ Member T/Member T/Member

BRANCH

Stephen Barnett NSW Tracey Tjahjadi NSW Ethan Pettiford NSW Hayley Staier NSW Andrew Skinner NSW Joel Fleming NSW Jason Reckless NSW Paul Langan QLD Charlie Pocock SA Jamie Hannah VIC Sean Taylor NSW Brendan Kiley NSW Jason Sweeney NSW Catherine De Lorenzo NSW Keiran Whitlock NSW Rohan Cox QLD Scott Hern QLD Marie McDonald TAS Scott Whittaker NSW Phillip Pallisier NSW Rob Domotor QLD Matt Anderson SA

Quarry August 2020 49

GEOLOGY TALK

MARINE HAVEN A HEADACHE FOR HUMANS

Pumice is an igneous rock with a foamy appearance. It has been used for centuries in the construction, medicine and cosmetics industries.

An underwater volcanic eruption near Fiji has caused a huge pumice raft the size of Manhattan to form.

Image courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory.

The floating pumice raft, as viewed by Australian surfers sailing to Vanuatu.

A pumice stone deposit the size of Manhattan that emerged from underwater volcanoes in 2019 has had both positive and negative effects on its local environment. Nickolas Zakharia reports.

propagules [a vegetative structure that can become detached from a plant and give rise to a new plant] or introduce young corals to a damaged reef ecosystem is relatively new and untested.”

In quarrying, pumice is deposited on the surface of the earth in loose aggregate form and therefore blasting is unnecessary because it is unconsolidated and can be ripped up by dozers and excavator shovels. Scalping screens are used to filter the pumice from organic soils and unwanted rocks and crushers are used to achieve desired grades, including lump, coarse, intermediate, fine and extra fine.

As an end product, pumice has been employed for centuries in construction, medicine and the cosmetics industry. It is also used as an abrasive, especially in polishes, pencil erasers, and the production of stone-washed jeans.

Pumice was also used in the early book making industry to prepare parchment paper and leather bindings. Today, there is still high demand for pumice, particularly for water filtration, chemical spill containment, cement manufacturing, horticulture and the pet industry. •

W

hen molten lava erupts from underwater volcanoes, it is rapidly cooled and turned into the bubbly rock known as pumice. The stones can end up forming free-floating rafts that host microscopic organisms and tiny sea creatures.

“When they wash up, they are literally chock-a-block full of animals and plants,” Dr Eleanor Velasquez, who studies pumice rafts at Griffith University, told the ABC. “The beauty of the pumice raft is that it gets washed around past all these different shallow marine reef systems and has the opportunity to pick up all of these hitchhiking corals and oysters and barnacles,” she said.

According to Velasquez, goose barnacles reside on pumice soon after an eruption and can encourage more species to reside on the rocks.

“They tend to grow all on the same side of the pumice, and once there’s enough of them they act like the keel of a boat,” she said. “I believe that the goose barnacles

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actually promote more diversity on the pumice stones. Species that build habitat occur a lot in marine communities, and for the pumice rafts goose barnacles are one of those habitat-forming species. They actually create habitat rather than just simply occupying it and stopping other species from colonising.”

However, pumice can have a negative impact on the environment when transporting sea creatures to foreign ecosystems which can be damaging to ocean plants such as kelp.

In 2019, an underwater volcanic eruption near Fiji caused a giant pumice raft to form.

Velazquez said it has affected inlets and bays, preventing locals in Fiji from fishing.

“It really causes distress for those communities because they are suddenly surrounded with this carpet of pumice that’s quite thick and there’s no way of really getting rid of it either, until the oceanic currents are suitable for it to be washed away,” she said.

“Whether pumice can provide some

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