HOF Citations 2016 Safety - Daniel Bongers | Page 2

SAFETY

SmartCap began as a spin-off from CRCMining,
which formed SmartCap Technologies (originally as
Edansafe) in order to commercialise SmartCap, the
technology which remains the key invention behind
SmartCap Technologies; with the inventor Daniel
Bongers then as Project Manager. Supported at the
time by CRCMining member Anglo American
Metallurgical Coal (AAMC), the SmartCap evolved
from a field-proven prototype in 2008 to commercial
trials in 2010. Anglo American then deployed the
driver headwear to its heavy vehicle drivers and
heavy machine operators at its coal mine sites
across Australia, and to other Anglo sites worldwide.
Its use then took off in the wider industry and major
users now include BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Newcrest.
Assmang and many others.
Assmang’s Beeshoek iron ore operation deployed
SmartCap in 2014 on 54 haul trucks to assist in
gauging the fatigue risk on-site and empowering the
workforce to proactively self-manage. Leading up to
the deployment, the site had suffered from a number
of incidents involving operators returning to work
after extended periods of leave. Beeshoek has seen
a significant reduction in fatigue incidents on-site.

workforces most fatigued between 2 am to 5 am.
We are also starting to see patterns based on
rosters where we have noticed the first nightshift
after a break period is the most difficult to deal with;
that transition from day-work to night-work. That
[information] can be fused with other information,
such as positions on the road, to learn about other
factors that influence fatigue like road design.
Hopefully people with this information can do
something about it to prepare better for work."
On worker concerns on being monitored, he stated:
"The idea of monitoring fatigue for people in the
workplace can be a confronting notion at times and
I think the comfort that our users feel is that it's an
initiative from their workplace to help them get
through the day and get home safe each day. It's all
about safety. SmartCap is not recording brainwave
information, it is using it to determine a level and
then discarding the brainwave information."

Workforce engagement has greatly improved as a
result of the inclusive change management process.
The technology allowed the mine to overcome key
challenges such as limited literacy amongst the
workforce that required a heavy emphasis on
training via demonstration; as well as a high staff
turnover making long-term improvements difficult
to gauge.
Clear trends have emerged in companies where the
device is used on large numbers of staff, and
Bongers stated in an interview with The Sydney
Morning Herald in 2015 that those companies have
been able to adapt working conditions in line with
those trends. "As you would expect we see shift

Also in 2015, SmartCap Technologies released a
Cloud-based version of SmartCap that allows
remote operations to use data storage and access
without fixed infrastructure. The company says it
“has joined the cloud based revolution offering a
cloud version of the award winning SmartCap
solution. The cloud version provides enormous
amounts of functionality that previously required
expensive server installations and management.
SmartCap is a predictive technology that provides
operators fatigue monitoring alerting operators when
they are at risk of a micro sleep.”
SmartCap’s range of products provide numerous
options for individual operators to manage their own
fatigue all the way to large organisations managing
multiple vehicles in real time. Advances in
technology including cloud technologies provide
multiple advantages such as the ability to store
fatigue data in one central location regardless of
where vehicles are operating.

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