Training delivery and compliance management will no longer require separate systems or be a highly manual task with Seertech Solutions’ cloud-based learning management system (LMS).
In every industry, there is a safety playbook. The Australian mining sector, for example, imposes its own set of unique safety standards and requirements.
Training and compliance are a critical part of keeping Australia’s miners safe.
Perth-headquartered Seertech Solutions helps mining companies meet these complex and mining-specific needs through the delivery of its core learning management system (LMS).
The company delivers mission critical learning and compliance management solutions that can be accessed anywhere and anytime from multiple devices.
Safe to Work speaks with Seertech Solutions founder and chief executive Paul Hardwick to explore the role of the LMS in a mining operation.
How did you arrive at the idea of developing an LMS and tailoring it to suit the mining industry?
I started Seertech Solutions during the 2000 dot-com era with the ANZ bank as our first customer. Scott Mahoney from ANZ wanted to sell compliance training they had developed to other regional banks. As Seertech grew we started working with Downer and we quickly realised that most software companies (including us at the time) did not truly understand the technical competency requirements of a number of industries including mining.
Mining and industrial companies like Downer and Boral were also tracking and managing their security, compliance and training information inefficiently and often in multiple systems. So we extended our learning management system (LMS) so it could track and manage all the compliance information required by employees and contractors, including licences and operational assessments, into the one system. Scott Mahoney is now North American managing director of Seertech and works with some of the world’s largest companies out of our office in Denver in the United States.
How is the LMS critical to mining operations?
Workers need to have technical competencies assessed at various levels for each location and/or piece of equipment they are operating. For example, it’s not just about having a licence to drive a car, but being assessed as competent to drive it at a specific mine site. Mining staff often need to have licences, task-based certification and safety training prior to working on site. In this way, we provide a cloud LMS that enables miners to deliver training and employee assessments in different ways, such as through virtual training.
We use special technology to deliver the training across bandwidth-restricted mine sites and even offline.
For example, Dominion Diamond has on site and remote Indigenous and contract employees, and they need to be trained. They’re based 200 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle in Canada’s Northwest Territories, a long way from anywhere. It is inhospitable to conduct training in the Arctic Circle, so it’s very critical for the employees to complete their training before they can be considered for on-site deployment. This is where our LMS comes in to assist them with pre-mine induction training and retraining so they can work safely.
Where there is no internet connectivity, our LMS is still of value. For example, during an assessment, a person can go down to the pit where there isn’t any Internet connectivity, fill in the assessment and return to the office where they will be automatically uploaded. This operational competency is a critical part of compliance and training.
It’s impressive that your LMS can still work in offline situations. What else is it capable of?
When an employee moves from one site to the next, you might not have his or her training records. You might’ve done half of their training, but you couldn’t track their training history at the previous mine site. With our LMS, you have one platform where you can store all that information despite people’s movement. Same with information pertaining to RTO (registered training organisation) certification compliance.
Beyond employee management, mine operators usually dedicate one individual system to a particular mine site to manage their contractors.
But the Seertech LMS enables you to manage safety compliance and have a holistic view of all your mine sites in one platform. This wasn’t possible six years ago. We simplify your process and reduce your footprint. At the same time, you have easy access to all your records should something occur.
The LMS also lends you a global visibility in that a safety manager can track an operation from anywhere, whether they’re off or on site.
This is a different way of managing compliance. In what other ways can it drive safety?
When you have a holistic view to your operation, suddenly you identify compliance deficiency in some areas within the organisation. This might require an action or additional training.
Such visibility drives compliance and shows you where you need to focus your efforts on. People aren’t going out of their way to be unsafe. Often, it’s just because they don’t know.
This article appears in the Mar-Apr issue of Safe to Work.