Solutions
What the tag board is for, and how Tagview does it.
Tag boards exist so nobody fires with a person underground, and so the mine can account for everyone in an emergency. Everything on this page is drawn from the regulations, codes of practice and published research listed at the bottom.
Underground
Why it matters
The tag board at the portal exists for two reasons. Nobody fires while a person is underground and exposed to the blast or the gases it creates, and in an emergency the mine must know who is underground and roughly where.6,5,1,2 Firing procedures have to cover warning, withdrawal of persons, and deciding when it is safe to re-enter,4,3 because the oxides of nitrogen and carbon monoxide left after a shot are lethal, and they travel through the mine well beyond the heading that was fired.7
How Tagview handles it
- Before firing: the wallboard in the control room and the dashboard show every person tagged on at the underground board, by company, with time underground. The shotfirer or shift supervisor sees an empty board, or exactly who is still to come out, without walking to the portal.
- During re-entry: anyone who tags back on before the re-entry time is on the board immediately, with a timestamp, and the history shows who went back in and when.
- In an emergency: the board is the record of who is underground at that moment, kept current every minute and held on the reader itself if the network fails. History gives the same list for any minute of the shift.
- End of shift: still-tagged-on flags fire a set time after shift end, so a person who left without tagging off is chased up rather than searched for.
Where Tagview stops. Tagview is the record. The clearance decision stays with the shotfirer and supervisor under your site procedure, and the board does not interlock with the firing system. Re-entry times are set by your ventilation and gas monitoring, not by Tagview.
Open pit
Why it matters
In an open cut, clearing the blast exclusion zone is done by blast guards and sweepers under a blast controller, with physical checks and radio confirmation. A sign or barricade is not enough, and sweepers have to check crib huts, amenities and parked machinery where people may be out of radio contact.8 Separately, the emergency plan must be able to locate every person at the mine promptly.1,4
How Tagview handles it
- Who is on site: boards at the gatehouse or crew entry points give the blast controller and the emergency controller a live list of who is on site and which company they are with, so the sweep and the muster are checking against a current list, not the morning’s pre-start sheet.
- Multiple entries: a person who tags on at a second board is moved to it, not counted twice, so the site count stays right across several gates.
- Contractors and visitors: every company on site is a company in Tagview, so the count can be broken down by employer when a supervisor is asked “are all of yours out?”.
Where Tagview stops. The sweep is the control. Tagview tells the blast controller who is on site to be found; it does not tell them where in the pit anyone is, and it does not replace the physical clearance.
Surface plant and shutdowns
Why it matters
A shutdown brings a large number of contractor personnel onto a fixed plant for a short period. The operator’s safety management system has to integrate each contractor’s plan, assess their competency requirements and monitor their compliance,9 and the emergency plan still has to account for every person on the mine.4,1
How Tagview handles it
- Companies, not a free-text field: each contractor and subcontractor is set up as a company with its own people and its own site access, before they arrive.
- Tickets and inductions: the skills matrix holds each person’s inductions, tickets and licences with expiry dates, and shows who is on site without a current one.
- Evacuation: the wallboard is the live list to check off at the assembly area, by company, and the history shows exactly who was tagged on when the alarm went.
Contractor workforces
Why it matters
The operator carries the duty, but the people belong to several employers. The safety management system must set out how each contractor is integrated, how their competency requirements are assessed, and how their compliance is monitored.9 Fatigue controls have to be applied to contractors the same as to staff.10
How Tagview handles it
- One account, many employers: contractors and subcontractors are modelled as companies under the operator’s account, each with the sites they are allowed to work on.
- Reports by company: headcounts, hours on site and history break down by employer, for site meetings and for checking a contractor’s own records.
- Skills by company: the skills matrix shows which of a contractor’s people hold the site induction and which tickets lapse during the contract.
Shift length and fatigue
Why it matters
Operators must manage the risk of worker fatigue.10 The NSW regulator has reported incidents on a worker’s 20th consecutive 12-hour shift and an electrician’s 10th consecutive 12.5-hour night shift, and recommends systems to monitor compliance with the fatigue plan for all workers on site, staff and contractors alike, with fatigue risk assessments for anyone working more than 14 hours including travel.10
How Tagview handles it
- Time on site, per person: the dashboard and wallboard show how long each person has been tagged on, right now.
- Long-shift flags: a flag is raised when a person passes the site threshold, 12 hours by default, evaluated in the site’s own timezone. Alerts go by email or SMS to whoever should know.
- Evidence for the fatigue plan: history and the weekly and monthly summaries give hours on site per person per day, by company, as a record to check the roster against.
Where Tagview stops. Time on site is not hours worked. It does not include travel, and it does not know what a person was doing. Treat it as one input to your fatigue risk assessment, not the assessment.
Other sites
Not a mine?
Quarries and other operations with controlled entry and a duty to account for people share the same need. If you need to know who is inside a boundary, talk to us.
References
Where this page comes from.
Regulations are quoted from the current published versions at the time of writing. Check the legislation for your state before relying on it.
- Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Regulation 2022 (NSW), s 91(2)(a): the emergency plan must establish “a system that enables all persons at the mine … to be promptly located” and, for underground mines, ensure “a record of all persons underground at any given time, and each person’s likely location, is accurately maintained and readily available in an emergency”. Source
- Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017 (Qld), s 36(2)(e)–(f): an underground mine must have “resources, facilities and procedures for tracing persons involved in an incident” and “a way of knowing the names and approximate location of all persons underground”. Source
- Mining and Quarrying Safety and Health Regulation 2017 (Qld), s 70(2): written blasting procedures must cover “warning and guarding persons against entering an unsafe area during a blast”, “removing persons who may be injured by a blast to a safe place before firing takes place” and “deciding when it is safe to re-enter the blasted area”. Source
- Work Health and Safety (Mines) Regulations 2022 (WA), r 631D(2)(t): the mine operator must have a site-specific procedure covering “guarding and restricting access, firing, blast warning, withdrawal and re-entry of persons, post-blast inspection and resumption of normal operation”. Schedule 22, item 5.1: the emergency plan must include “procedures for the safe evacuation of, and accounting for, all persons at the mine”. Source
- Mines Safety and Inspection Regulations 1995 (WA), since replaced by the 2022 regulations: r 10.32 required “a procedure … for checking all persons in and out of the mine so that all persons are accounted for at the end of each working shift” and, where mains firing or mass blasting was used, that “all persons are accounted for at a place determined to be safe before firing or blasting”. r 8.37 referred to “clearance of all personnel through a personal tag board checking system”. r 9.22(4)–(5) prohibited entry after blasting until toxic gases had dispersed and the atmosphere was checked.
- US Mine Safety and Health Administration, “MNM Underground Mines Check-in / Check-out System”: the supervisor in charge of blasting should ensure “the check-in / check-out board is cleared before allowing the blast”, protecting miners from “oxygen deficiency, gases and blast concussions”, and the system “provides a method to ensure all workers are accounted for” in an emergency. Source
- Stewart, C.M. (2014), “Practical prediction of blast fume clearance and workplace re-entry times in development headings”, 10th International Mine Ventilation Congress: the gases of immediate concern after firing are oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide and ammonia; carbon monoxide is cited as the prime cause of poisoning; gases from a cleared heading travel through other travelways, so mine-wide re-entry can take much longer than for a single heading. Source
- Australasian Explosives Industry Safety Group, Code of Practice: Blast Guarding in an Open Cut Mining Environment, Edition 2 (2018): “Physical checks and guards are a mandatory part of any blast clearance process”; “A sign or barricade is NOT sufficient”; sweepers must check crib huts, amenities and parked machinery “where personnel may be working remotely or out of radio contact”, and report by two-way radio before the shotfirer takes control. Source
- Work Health and Safety (Mines and Petroleum Sites) Regulation 2022 (NSW), ss 19(f) and 24–26: the safety management system must set out how each contractor’s health and safety management plan is integrated, “the process for assessing health and safety policies and procedures, including competency requirements, of the contractor”, and “the arrangements for monitoring and evaluating compliance by the contractor”. Source
- NSW Resources Regulator, Safety Bulletin SB23-07 “Fitness for work – fatigue” (August 2023): reported incidents on a worker’s 20th consecutive 12-hour shift and an electrician’s 10th consecutive 12.5-hour night shift; recommends fatigue controls be “consistently applied across all areas of the mine site including contractors”, systems “to monitor compliance with the fatigue management plan for all workers on site”, and fatigue risk assessments for anyone working more than 14 hours including travel. Regulation s 45 requires operators to manage risks from worker fatigue. Source
People. Presence. Clarity.
Ready to know who’s on site?
Every Tagview installation starts with a conversation about your sites, your boards and your people. Tell us about your operation and we’ll come back with a plan.