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Case Study: Impala Platinum Refineries

IsoMetrix improves data collection and reporting for Impala Platinum Refineries

Quick facts

Operations located: South Africa, Zimbabwe, Canada
Listed: London Stock Exchange (LSE), Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE)
Industry: Mining
Number of employees: Refineries division of Impala Platinum Ltd – 950 employees; Impala Platinum Ltd, including Rustenburg mines – 48 000 employees
IsoMetrix software solutions implemented by Impala Platinum Ltd: Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS)

Impala Platinum Ltd, often referred to as Implats, is a leading producer of platinum group metals (PGMs), structured around six mining operations and Impala Refining Services, a toll refining business. The metals produced are the key to making many essential industrial, medical, and electronic items – and they contribute to a cleaner, greener world. Implats actively develops markets for its PGM products, which are sold in South Africa, Japan, China, the US, and Europe.

“Our Rustenburg site recently asked me for a summary of all property damages which occurred over the last two years. Previously this type of request would have taken me a week to find, collate, and extract the relevant information such as incident descriptions, remedial actions taken, etc. With IsoMetrix’s EHS software however, using actions such as filtering, it took me five minutes to get the information I needed.”

Carina Burger, Safety and Environmental Manager at Impala Platinum Refineries

Background

As one of the world’s leading producers of platinum group metals, Impala Platinum has extensive business operations throughout Southern Africa and internationally. Due to the size and scope of the organization, there is a lot of environmental, health and safety (EHS) data which is generated, and which needs to be captured and stored by the company.

Inefficient storage methods coupled with the sheer quantity of data meant that Impala Platinum’s Safety & Environmental Manager at the Refineries division, Carina Burger, was having real difficulty extracting useful EHS data from the company’s systems when required.

Company policy dictated that all incidents and audits needed to be loaded into the system, but Carina was unable to extract useful information, statistics, and relevant trends from it in an efficient manner. Reporting was a tiresome manual exercise consisting of tasks such as printing out datasheets, manually counting incidents, and inputting relevant data on spreadsheets.

Goals and desired outcomes

The Refineries’ main objective was to collect data more efficiently at site-level and to host this data within a centralized software system that is user-friendly and conducive to producing the required reports. Not only are EHS standards becoming ever more prevalent within the global mining industry, but reporting on ESG requirements is becoming increasingly important and expected by both investors and the general public. By implementing a quality EHS system like IsoMetrix, Implats would improve its ability to store, recall and extract data where and when required. It would also make it easier to demonstrate compliance with the ISO 14001 Environmental Management, and ISO 45001 Occupational Health and Safety standards.

Challenges and solutions

Challenge no.1

The Refineries, a division of Impala, was facing a difficult challenge in extracting useful information, statistics, and relevant trends from its stored data.

Solution

Implementing IsoMetrix’s EHS software eliminated dispersed data silos throughout the organization, and provided Carina with one centralized location for all her safety-related information. Not only was information now centralized, but the user-friendly layout and nature of the software made it easy to view and extract relevant EHS data where necessary. With a few clicks of her mouse, Carina is now able to track her progress towards her safety targets, manage her EHS processes, analyze trends and identify areas of interest, and organize information to easily generate reports in her required formats.

Challenge no.2

Improve ground-level data collection from various sites in order to better identify problems and make more informed decisions with regards to health and safety.

Solution

A company may have the world’s best centralized EHS software system, but it is futile if it is not populated with good-quality raw data. Carina is reliant on her end-users such as individual site managers to load their incident reports, photos, videos, and any other supporting documentation in an organized way which supports her efforts to manage the EHS company function effectively.

Checks such as required fields within the IsoMetrix software ensure that end-users do indeed upload their findings in a structured and comprehensive manner. In addition, the user-friendliness of the system means that end-users can navigate the system easily with minimal training, guidance, and oversight from Carina, saving her valuable time.

“It’s great how simple and easy-to-use the IsoMetrix software is, and it really helps in terms of collecting ground-level safety data from people on-site. Because the system is intuitive, training is easy.”

Carina Burger, Safety and Environmental Manager at Impala Platinum Refineries

Further benefits

An easy-to-use system requiring minimal IT support

One of the features of IsoMetrix’s software really appreciated by Carina is the way in which she can easily edit admin settings in her EHS system, as needs arise. Tasks such as blocking or enabling end-user access, and setting data capture fields as mandatory whilst eliminating unnecessary other data fields, are all things which she can do from behind her desk without the need to involve a technical specialist.

This ability to administer the system herself as she sees fit and without requiring the involvement of internal or external technical resources saves a great deal of time for both herself, and her end-users who are reliant on her for an optimal system setup.

Dashboards provide crucial insights at-a-glance

One of the most appealing features of the software for Carina is the array of dashboards, providing her with various aspects of safety-related information, at-a-glance, and in an easily understandable format.

The dashboards not only provide her with the information which she wants to see, but enable her to track her progress towards her safety-related organizational goals and targets as well.

Helpful IsoMetrix assistance

In the event that Carina is faced with requiring a system amendment which she cannot administrate herself, she can contact her IsoMetrix Customer Success Manager who will involve the required technical support resources to assist Carina with her system request.

Carina has, on the whole, found the IsoMetrix helpdesk quick to help her and efficient whenever she has required external assistance.

“IsoMetrix has definitely met my expectations when it comes to EHS software. In fact, it was our company’s experience using IsoMetrix’s Environmental Sustainability solution that encouraged us to purchase their EHS solution for our safety requirements, as we were targeting ISO 45001 certification. It’s great to see that they have a continuous improvement approach to their software development.”

Carina Burger, Safety and Environmental Manager at Impala Platinum Refineries

Summary

As one of the world’s leading producers of platinum group metals and with extensive business operations throughout Southern Africa and internationally, Impala Platinum could ill-afford to use outdated methods of storing and retrieving safety and environmental data and information.

After implementing IsoMetrix’s EHS solution, Implats was able to improve its ground-level data collection from its system end-users, and dramatically reduce the amount of time needed to pull required information from its system. The user-friendliness of the software combined with useful features like the intuitive and visually appealing dashboards have only enhanced the overall user-experience for the organization.

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