Mining is inherently hazardous, but mobile apps offer ways to enhance safety in the industry. According to the United States Department of Labor, coal mining fatalities rose to 15 in 2017, following a record low of eight deaths in 2016.
Each year, various mining operations report fatalities, with nearly 250 deaths occurring across all types of mines, including coal, from 2011 to 2017, as reported by the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. Additionally, this does not include the occupational health challenges miners face, such as lung disease (black lung), hearing loss, and other chronic conditions.
The Role of Mobile Apps in Enhancing Safety
Safety training and technological advancements are making strides in reducing fatalities and injuries in mining, ensuring safer conditions for miners. Mobile apps are increasingly replacing traditional methods like paper forms and Excel spreadsheets.
The Mining Journal highlights that using mobile apps for site inspections offers significant advantages, particularly over paper, which is restricted to text input, can be misinterpreted, and delays the transmission of critical safety information. Stay tuned to Metalswire.net for new technologies and breaking news.
Advantages of Mobile Apps in Mining
Mobile apps ensure inspections comply with company and industry standards. They allow for multimedia inputs, such as photos, to effectively report complex issues and provide visual evidence when necessary. Information can be swiftly conveyed to the appropriate person with just a swipe or tap.
Overcoming Connectivity Challenges
One challenge with using mobile apps in mines is the lack of Wi-Fi and cell signal underground. However, Sudeep Pasricha, an associate professor at Colorado State University in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, has conducted research to develop more reliable and safer underground communications networks.
He notes that such networks could significantly enhance the safety of hundreds of thousands of American miners and create new opportunities for communication in extreme environments.
Solutions for Offline Functionality
Another solution to the Wi-Fi connectivity issue is to design mobile safety apps that function offline. Alpha Anywhere is perfectly suited for creating these apps, especially in remote areas or deep mines without internet access.
The Benefits of App
In addition to its offline capabilities, the App is an outstanding resource for developing safety applications. Numerous clients are using it to create apps for high-risk industries such as oil and gas, construction, utilities, mining, and manufacturing. With its mobile-optimized forms, building industrial safety apps becomes a seamless process. Within minutes, you can design a form-based app to improve worker safety.
Conclusion
Protect your mining workers with the App. The best mining apps operate offline, are optimized for one-handed data entry (such as speech-to-text), leverage corporate processing power, and integrate with systems of record to provide critical information and facilitate swift communication within the organization. By using mobile apps, data collection, and sharing will improve, enabling better and faster business decisions that will significantly enhance safety.
Final Thoughts
Apps empower mining companies to create maintenance, safety, and accident reporting applications that capture and relay critical data efficiently. With these tools, you can swiftly develop cross-platform business apps that boast substantial processing power, operate offline, and feature advanced mobile data capture capabilities.
These apps seamlessly integrate with your existing business systems, processes, and data investments, enhancing worker productivity and streamlining business operations and alerts. For power users, apps can be tailored through programming to accommodate more complex workflows, integrations, or security needs.
