TRAINING: Immersive Technologies boosts operator skills at Hounde mine

BURKINA FASO – The greenfield Hounde gold operation of Endeavour Mining in has recently gone into development and with quick timelines to get equipment to site and operators trained. Endeavour Mining has selected operator training solutions from Immersive Technologies. [caption id="attachment_1003719167" align="alignleft" width="300"] Operator skills were better after training on simulators from Immersive Technologies.[/caption] Operators are trained on specific behaviors that impact machine health, safety and productivity, and management is able to identify which operators require additional training. “In our baseline evaluation we noted a common problem where many operators were using a gear too high for the grade thereby impacting transmission performance. After training was conducted operators later returned to one of the two simulators for a re-measure and we found the training had resulted in an 85% decrease in improper gear selection,” says Anthony Bruce of Immersive Technologies. The Hounde mine reported these improvements:

• 80% reduction in tire abuse errors,
• 7% reduction in incorrect brake application,
• 5% reduction in engine damage,
• 11 second improvement in spot time,
• 44 second reduction in average loading reversing time, and
• 57 minute improvement in average circuit time.

Endeavour is using two simulators from Immersive Technologies with multiple simulator modules and is the first mine using this level of technology in Burkina Faso. Learn more at www.ImmersiveTechnologies.com.