BIGViz™ Mining

In the United States, coal production is responsible for fifty percent of the country’s total energy production. In 2004 the U.S. produced 1.1 trillion short tons of coal valued at $22.1 billion. Overall, the mining industry employed 329,008 workers, who labored to produce minerals worth over $78 billion. However, generating energy from the mining industry comes at extremely high costs.

According to the United States Department of Labor, fatal work injuries in coal mining more than doubled in 2006 due in part to the Sago mine disaster and other mining incidents. A total of 47 coal mining fatalities were recorded in 2006, up from 22 in 2005. In four multiple-fatality incidents alone during 2005 21 workers lost their lives.

At Bentonville International Group we believe that 21st Century technology, like Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS), can help to locate miners in the event of a collapse, or any emergency, within the mine. The applications being used today are limited in their effectiveness within the environment of the mines, especially in an emergency situation. BIGViz™ Mining capitalizes on RTLS technology and supporting software to allow the compliance of U.S. mines with new federal mandates (MINER ACT of 2006) while making the mining industry a safer, more productive, and less costly venture on an international scale.

The core of the BIGViz™ Mining solution provides zonal real-time location capabilities coupled with strategically placed read portals utilizing active RFID technology applications. The average coal mine in the U.S. has 15 entries and can span over hundreds of square miles underground, making accountability for assets once they enter the mine extremely difficult.

While using the RTLS technologies engrained in BIGViz™ Mining your mines will not only have visibility of your most critical assets, your miners, but in most cases, you can also build additional visibility solutions with the same infrastructure. Whether you would like to track mobile assets moving throughout the mine, or any area of your mine that requires more visibility, check with Bentonville International Group to learn more about BIGViz™ Mining, and all of the BIGViz™ portfolio of products to help your mine get more Vizible.