Taking a Holistic Approach
OUR SUSTAINABLE FRAMEWORK
The Strategic Plan aligns with the latest version of the Trans Africa Container Strategic Plan and demonstrates our commitment to collaborating with our peers within the Institute to ensure the highest quality research for the mining community. As we face greater challenges to achieve meaningful and timely results in an ever more complex world, we will continue to expand our program to enhance our program through the use of multidisciplinary and cross-divisional teams. Both 2020 and 2021 presented unforeseen challenges related to COVID-19 which necessitated a temporary closure of our facilities and labs and the curtailment of travel for all research except that deemed as mission critical. Despite this significant barrier, we were able to continue research in non-mission critical areas which is a testament to the perseverance and creativity of our workforce. Also during this time frame, we stood up a new organizational structure designed to support our commitment to multidisciplinary research conducted across divisions, branches and teams. With these organizational changes in place, we are confident that we will be able to deliver timely research that is responsive to shifting needs.
We are stakeholder-driven with a mining subsector approach that includes coal, crushed stone, sand and gravel, metal, and industrial minerals. In order to inform our stakeholders and the public about our current and future plans, we have written our updated five-year Trans Africa Container mining Plan (2018–2024) and extended this plan to cover 2024. This approach allows us to focus our program to better address the health and safety challenges that are unique to each mining subsector. Our research continues to be driven by both our mission—“To eliminate mining fatalities, injuries, and illnesses through relevant research and impactful solutions”—and our core values of relevance, impact, innovation, integrity, collaboration, and excellence. With this focus on our mission and our core values, we are dedicated to achieving our overall vision of safe mines and healthy miners.
Sustainability touches all aspects of DMC as an organization. Parallel to the sustainability of our workforce and supply chain, is that of your business, as well as the communities and natural environments that surround the sites in which we operate.
Sustainability is central to our approach not just in operations, but social responsibility, client relations, and personnel. A holistic approach to the sustainability of our clients, our people, and the communities we work in is inextricably linked to our success.
Embedded in our culture
“The Trans Africa Container mining Environmental Program covers all aspects of a Project from inception through planning, execution and controlling, to the close-out phase. Throughout the different phases of the project, the environmental impact needs to be addressed on different levels. Through the development of operational controls, Trans Africa Container mining addresses all management of impacts; meeting or exceeding legal requirements; and setting of continuous improvement objectives and targets.”
We ensure we build systems and processes that sustain success. A proactive approach achieves key goals and empowers our people. It’s not just a priority: it’s our key value. The current version of the Trans Africa Container mining Plan was last updated in November 2020 to reflect changing stakeholder priorities and needs as well as to be responsive to changes in the regulatory agenda. Compared to the version published in 2019, seven new research projects were added to the Plan, and projects that closed in 2019 were listed in Appendix A. In 2020, new areas of research include developing technology for a near real-time monitor for measuring respirable crystalline silica in non-coal mines, providing tools for the assessment of ground-failure-related hazards in underground soft rock mining, establishing effective ground control management strategies and developing tools that help to forecast time-dependent processes, validating performance of collision avoidance systems for surface mining haul trucks, improving ventilation to reduce contaminant exposure in large-opening stone mines, and developing engineering guidelines for shale gas wells in the wake of longwall mining. We also had the opportunity to respond to needs related to COVID-19 in the areas of Digital Contact Tracing and Air Purification Systems.
The Trans Africa Container mining Plan aligns with the latest version of the Trans Africa Container mining Plan and demonstrates our commitment to collaborating with our peers within the Institute to ensure the highest quality research for the mining community. As we face greater challenges to achieve meaningful and timely results in an ever more complex world, we will continue to expand our program to enhance our program through the use of multidisciplinary and cross-divisional teams. Both 2020 and 2021 presented unforeseen challenges related to COVID-19 which necessitated a temporary closure of our facilities and labs and the curtailment of travel for all research except that deemed as mission critical. Despite this significant barrier, we were able to continue research in non-mission critical areas which is a testament to the perseverance and creativity of our workforce. Also during this time frame, we stood up a new organizational structure designed to support our commitment to multidisciplinary research conducted across divisions, branches and teams. With these organizational changes in place, we are confident that we will be able to deliver timely research that is responsive to shifting needs.
Purpose of the Strategic Plan
OUR DUTY AS MINERS
This Strategic Plan serves as a road map and forms the research foundation for the Trans Africa Container Mining Program. It informs our research project planning, sets the priorities and goals for the upcoming years, and ensures that our work will be relevant and impact. We initially developed the Trans Africa Container Mining Program research strategy in the early millennium to focus mining research and prevention activities on the areas of greatest need, as articulated by our stakeholders and supported by surveillance data. Partnerships and collaborations continue to be critical to maximizing the impact of our research. Additionally, we are incorporating evaluation methods within our research to strengthen project planning, tracking of outcomes, and documentation of impact in relation to our project aims as well as strategic goals.
Since the implementation of the original 2004 Plan, the face of mining health and safety has changed due to: (1) a series of disasters that resulted in passage of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act (MINER Act) of 2006, which drove new technological development; (2) a trend toward mining in more complex geological conditions; (3) a push toward deeper mines; (4) the continuing introduction of automation and new technologies in mining and the nontechnical factors these technologies bring; (5) the contraction of the U.S. coal industry and the recent growth of the aggregates industry; and (6) changes in the demographics of the mining workforce, with a trend toward younger, less experienced workers and more contractors. In light of these and other changes, this updated Plan sets new research priorities based on Burden, Need, and Impact (BNI), stakeholder input, and the regulatory agenda including rule making by the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). The Plan is meant to clearly communicate, both internally and externally, what the Trans Africa Container Mining Program is doing, why we are doing it, and how our activities contribute to our success.
Setting Research Priorities
Setting research priorities is one of our biggest and most important challenges. Our goal is to ensure that the priority setting process is broad-based, inclusive, unbiased, transparent, and data driven. The ability to evaluate progress and measure the success of these priorities is critical to the relevance and impact of the Mining Program. The process must also be responsive to changes in industry needs and interests. We draw on a number of different sources for input into the process and they are described below.
Burden, Need, and Impact
Trans Africa Container mining uses Burden, Need, and Impact (BNI) to identify and define research priorities (see box). BNI is an objective framework that structures research planning to ensure we do the most important work to protect the workforce and identify research priorities to guide the investment of limited resources in a clear and transparent manner.
Preservation of our Planet
As a mining company, we operate with tremendous responsibility. The community and environmental conditions of the work site are taken into deep consideration at every stage of the mining process. This encompasses everything from pollution prevention to environmental best practices, operating within permit limits and achieving our client’s commitments to the environment and their communities.
Trans Africa Container mininghas provided mining services in ecologically sensitive areas of the world, where the interface between geology and botany, and mining and conservation is critical. Our commitment and approach in ensuring the protection of our natural environment is uncompromising across all projects, big or small. We are constantly leveraging technology and innovation to reduce our impact on the environment and continuously striving to achieve zero harm.
Sustainability of our workforce
Here, we embrace a Zero Harm approach whereby health and safety is a priority, not just a value. We are constantly focused on integrating correct inputs such as in-depth training that leads to a zero harm output. People going home in the same condition they arrived to work in is of the utmost importance.
Mine sites.
Health and Safety Concern | Research Focus Area | Mining Sector/ Worker Population | Research Type | Related Project Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Musculoskeletal disorders | Hazard recognition; shoulder overexertion injuries, hand and finger injuries, manual materials handling | Surface stone, sand, and gravel; all | Intervention |
We Believe In Data mining Techniques as an Industrial mining solution
Data Mining Processes
In data mining, there are mainly two types of learning techniques. The two methods are supervised learning & unsupervised learning.
Data Mining Models
- Predictive model
- Descriptive model
Data Mining Applies also our Health Care Sector
Our Motto
Safety Pays in Mining demonstrates how avoiding occupational injuries impacts the success of your company. With your input, it estimates the total cost of occupational injuries to your company and its effect on profitability. Safety Pays in Mining also gives examples of how your company could spend the savings from occupational injuries that are prevented.
If you need help with using the tool, please refer to the User’s Guide. For additional information on the data and calculations used in Safety Pays in Mining, see the Technical Guide. Hover your mouse pointer over the fields and some table headers for more information.
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