Ensuring Quarry Site Safety with Drones
Quarry sites are faced with numerous safety issues. There is a regular need to measure high walls, safety blocks and berms and limit the number of workers on the ground. Surveyors used to work in dangerous areas as they had to make measurements in close proximity of high walls, huge rocks, soft ground and heavy machinery. Drones can solve safety concerns that pose problems on sites such as quarry layout problems and the dangers of manual surveying as the drone flights are performed outside of the quarry.
Carrières Roy, a company that produces ballasts and owns several quarry sites all over France has integrated drone technology into their site-monitoring processes. They are now using drone-acquired data not only to monitor their productivity, but also to ensure compliance to safety regulations.
As a result, drone technology has enabled the quarry workers to collect more accurate data, while at the same time reducing the time spent gathering it. Their surveyors used to take 5 days to perform manual and dangerous volume calculations. With the drone, this process can be done within 15 minutes. Their residence time is reduced and they are no longer exposed to potential site dangers.
“Today, we regularly have a drone operator fly his drone over our quarry. We don’t have anyone climbing up stockpiles or walking around the site anymore.”
Jérome Lassalle — Quarry Manager — Carrières Roy
Drones are also able to reach places that humans cannot. They can go close to safety blocks and view the entire site from birds-eye view. The use of this technology is enabling Carrières Roy to monitor slopes, the use of their machines, and ensure compliance to regulations by measuring safety blocks and high walls. These allow them to be proactive in dealing with potential dangers before they naturally occur.
“ We now have access to safety-related analytics.
The height of the safety blocks that are positioned along the haul roads must meet specific requirements: in the past, it was impossible to determine this with traditional methods.”Jérome Lassalle — Quarry Manager — Carrières Roy
Here’s how using a cloud-based solution has made their day-to-day operations safer:
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