Rio Tinto, a mining company with operations in 35 countries worldwide, has selected IntelliPERMIT to be used at the Gudai-Darri iron ore mine in Western Australia. The technologically advanced mine located north west of Newman in the Pilbara region is currently under construction and is expected to produce the first iron-ore in early 2022.

IntelliPERMIT, developed by Adapt IT, is widely used in metals and mining in several countries worldwide. The system manages the permit and isolation processes to improve work visibility, identify and take all necessary precautions to reduce risk, improve team productivity, and ultimately improve safety performance on site.

IntelliPERMIT v9.1 has been successfully used for two years to improve the management of energy isolation at the Hope Downs 4 iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Australia. Rio Tinto and Hancock Prospecting jointly own the Hope Downs mines.

The safety and wellbeing of employees, contractors and communities is the number one priority in Rio Tinto. According to Jakob Stausholm, Chief Executive Rio Tinto Group, the focus in 2021 will be on “further maturing our safety system, which will lead to overall improvements in our safety performance and, at the same time, improve our operations” – Rio Tinto Annual Report 2020.

Through the principal EPCM contractor for the Gudai-Darri project, Rio Tinto issued a request for proposal for a computer-based system to manage isolations and safe control of work. Following the evaluation process, IntelliPERMIT v10.0 was selected as the preferred system for the new mine. As part of the evaluation process, the software was subjected to rigorous cybersecurity vulnerability tests in line with the technologically advanced and highly automated mine requirements.

Gudai-Darri is being developed as an ‘intelligent mine’ with a high emphasis on technology and innovation to deliver improvements across the operation. The electronic permit work stream seeks to manage the organisations permitting and isolation management, providing consistency and visibility of high risk work with the view to improving safety.

“In the mining sector, technology has an important role to play in addressing productivity, growth and sustainability challenges. This is another core element to our strategy; our approach is to look for the best solutions through partnerships with our suppliers, technology providers and others across our value chains”. – Rio Tinto Annual Report.

IntelliPERMIT is a computer-based system that reduces risk exposure to people during work. The system uses several advanced techniques to predict hazards and control safe work in dangerous environments. The system caters for job risk assessments, management of isolations, and ensures that only authorised personnel are allowed to work. At Gudai-Darri, IntelliPERMIT will be used to control all work with material risk exposure, including activities such as working at heights and confined space entry.

At Gudai-Darri, the near field radio frequency ID (RFID) features of IntelliPERMIT will also be used by field workers in conjunction with scanning QR codes to identify and verify isolation points in the field. The Android mobile devices used by the mine will also allow for real-time permit information to be available from an authorised device, thereby significantly reducing wait times and further improving productivity.

Visibility of work will be enhanced using IntelliPERMIT’s dashboard feature. Proactive alerts and notifications regarding permits and safety controls will also be sent to mobile devices in the field to improve communication and job coordination.

The project to implement IntelliPERMIT at Gudai-Darri commenced in March 2021. The system is expected to go live ahead of the start- up of the new mine. Solution design, configuration and testing are all being conducted remotely in line with Adapt IT’s remote implementation and support methodologies.

“We are pleased that Rio Tinto has shown their continued confidence in our solution by selecting IntelliPERMIT for use at Gudai-Darri”, says Scott Bredin, Operations Executive at Adapt IT. “IntelliPERMIT has been widely adopted in the mining industry, where isolation management and control of work are key processes that help ensure work takes place safely, always”.

ABOUT ADAPT IT

Adapt IT is a provider of leading specialised software and digitally- led business solutions that assist clients across the targeted industries achieve more by improving their customer experience, core business operations, business administration, enterprise resource planning and public service delivery.

For more information on Adapt IT, visit:

www.adaptit.com

For more information on IntelliPERMIT, visit:

www.intellipermit.com