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COLLECTION AND MANAGEMENTOF CONTRACTOR HOURSAND COMPETENCY
The development of an industry wide framework for the
Clifton Cunningham Managing Director MineIT Pty Ltd
AbstractThis paper discusses the development of an
open communications framework that will allow thecollection of contractor hours, competency andgeneral OH&S information from any site (includingcontractors themselves) regardless of the means bywhich the information is collected. This frameworkis built around existing MineIT technology in theform of our mesh internet services.
The information collected could be used to solvecurrent problems such as contractors working forunsafe periods of time, even across multiple sites,and would add value to the generic inductionprocess for both contractors and mine sites as itwould allow industry to track the currency of ageneric induction based on its work history. Theopen-ness of such a framework is essential if it is tobe adopted industry wide as it must be capable ofbringing together information from, and deliveringinformation to, a wide variety of sources.
This paper will examine the technology behindthe development of such a framework, examine whythe industry needs it and take a look at the issuesthat could inhibit its development and how toovercome these issues. Examples will be taken fromexisting MineIT clients in the coal mining industry.
The authorClifton Cunningham is the founder and Managing
Director of MineIT Pty Ltd. He is a graduate of theUniversity of Queensland with a Bachelor ofEngineering (Electrical & Computer Systems) withFirst Class Honours. He has worked in theunderground coal mining industry in Queenslandand New South Wales and is now based in Mackay.
The companyMineIT was founded in early 1999. The first
products included the Competency & TrainingSystem, Mine Reporting System and StatutoryEvent Scheduling System. The core focus of thecompany always remained firmly on theCompetency & Training System and as such thisremains the ‘flagship’ product. MineIT pride’s itselfon being at the cutting edge of technology and assuch providing fast, cost effective and flexiblesolutions.
Why does industry need a centralised framework?There are a number of reasons why any industry
with high usage of contractors in high riskenvironments needs a centralised method ofdetermining and managing information such ascompetency, work hours or accident/incidentreports. Many of these reasons can be traced backto concerns about safety and fatigue, while others
are purely driven from an administrative time andcost perspective. Regardless of what reason you seeas the most important, mine sites, contractors,workers and regulatory agencies would all derivebenefit from a centralised and standardisedframework managing this information.
Management of contractor competencyIt is now a requirement that there be a training
framework at each mine site that manages how aperson is identified as competent to perform a dutyor operate equipment and how that competency ismaintained. As many sites (and contractors) arebuilding this framework around the National ITABCULP’s they are inevitably heading in the samedirection. A centralised framework developed at thesame time most mine sites are developing theirprocedures could save a considerable amount ofhassle in the future arguing over definitions andterminology.
Key Point: An electronic framework must have a wayof defining each individual competency linked to arecognised standard. It must go ‘inside’ the compe-tency units to the level of actual equipment beingoperated. This is how things are done on an opera-tional level and it is these people that the frame-work is designed to help.
One of the most important aspects ofcompetency-based training is in determining thecurrency of a particular competency. An example ofthis that is particularly applicable to contractors isthe currency of the generic induction. Under thecurrent system, even if a contractor workscontinuously in the industry over a two-year period(attending several site specific inductions in theprocess) they have to waste time and moneyredoing the course. By linking existing on-sitemanagement procedures to the framework (such asswipe in/out units) work hours across multiple sitescan be centrally monitored.
Key Point: An electronic framework can be used totrack the amount of time spent working in theindustry which can then provide a gauge of genericinduction currency.
Transportability of contractor competencyIf everyone is trained by accredited trainers to a
nationally recognised standard then why shouldn’tthey then be allowed to use that competency atanother site with only a small site-specificinduction? This is particularly important tocontractors who now waste a considerable amountof time and money getting their workforceauthorised to operate the same piece of equipmentat different sites.
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Key point: An electronic framework provides ameans of allowing each contractor and site to trainpeople to a recognised standard through anauditable process and then communicate thisinformation in a common format.
Managing safety and fatigueBy linking existing site systems for management
of contractor hours to the electronic framework asimple method of managing contractor work hoursand fatigue across multiple sites emerges. Thesystem does not need to (though potentially could)be configured to warn in ‘real time’ of excess workhours. It could simply monitor individual workhours over predetermined periods and generateexception reports when required.
Key point: An electronic framework could monitorcontractor work hours across multiple sites andprovide early warnings of unsafe work hours.
Unlimited potentialOne key aspect to this framework is its ability to
manage any type of information. It simply requiresthe central definition of a data type and then thetransmission of that definition to all clients using it.
This framework can be extended to manageinformation such as safety bulletins, contractorwork hours (collated from local swipe in/outsystems), industry news or shift reports (betweenremote site and head office or contractor and minesite).
Potentially any information that needs to becollected from a wide range of locations in acommon format can be managed using thisframework.
meshThe MineIT mesh framework was originally
developed as an internet service designed to addvalue to our existing range of products. It soonbecame apparent that with a bit of thought it couldeasily be designed to do a lot more than that andwas an ‘innovative solution’ in its own right.
It is a range of services available to anyone over
the internet who is granted access by us or one ofour clients. In a nutshell it is best described as aflexible method of collecting, storing and retrievingdata securely across the internet. As soon as webegan full scale testing it was apparent that asolution for the management of contractorsindustry wide had emerged.
The internetThe internet has now been in mainstream
business use for almost a decade. Despite the hypeclaiming that the internet would revolutionise theway we work I personally don’t think that anythingtoo ‘revolutionary’ has really happened.
The main problem with the internet is thatpeople often don’t see the bigger picture and aretrapped by attempting to think of it like they wouldany other software tool in their office.
It is a tool, and a useful one, but if you try to useit to solve problems the same way you have in thepast then you will end up with the same solution.
The only ‘real world’ analogy I will apply to theinternet is that regardless of how you transmitinformation across the internet, via email, webpages or instant messaging; you are ultimately justsending a small packet of information from point Ato point B.
When you then take into account there are aninfinite number of ways to send the information, aninfinite number of things that point B can do withthe information before sending it back, storing it orsending it on and then an infinite number of pointA and B’s things get a little more interesting.
Now, if we take point B as our server(www.mineit.com.au) and point A as our mine siteor contracting client a simple picture begins todevelop.
The server is going to be the one in charge; it willdefine the structure of the data that the clients canfill with information (or retrieve from it). Clients areonly allowed to ‘play ball’ if they comply with all ofthe requirements that the server puts in place –keeping in mind that the server can place
Figure 1 mesh overview
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limitations not only on the structure of the databut the actual data itself. In no time at all you havea clear picture of a centrally managed electronicframework. You may understand exactly ‘how’ itworks but you can see where each player fits in.
Flexible dataAnyone who has been involved in the
development of a database to manage any kind ofinformation will understand that the first step is indefining the information and its internalrelationships. This can often be a long andcomplicated task – but absolutely vital to the endresult and one that can prove very difficult tochange down the track.
A framework of this type stops dead in the waterif you attempt to define the information in thetraditional way. You have to take a step back anddecide that rather than directly managing theinformation; you will manage information‘structures’. This means that your database endsup being a database of structures (both simpleand complex) and the relationship between them.You can redefine a particular structure withoutredesigning the database. You can add newstructures without redesigning the database. Youcan remove unwanted structures withoutredesigning the database. This is crucial.
With mesh in mind, we have chosen to nameour information structure definition a metafrag andan information structure containing data a frag(this is short for fragment – as many of these areincluded in a single package sent between clientand server).
Our server now contains metafrag definitions forcontractors, training records, skills, locations, sites,classifications, swipes, swipe units and more.
These definitions are used by the client tocreate data from a local database or parse datafrom the server into a local database.
The metafrag definitions for our contractormanagement framework are defined by us, thoughour clients also have the ability to define their owncustom metafrag definitions for their own use.
There are also a range of ‘transforms’ that canbe used to turn data contained in a frag into aprinter friendly PDF document.
XMLThe actual format of our information is XML
(eXtended Markup Language). This is now a verycommon method of transferring informationacross the internet – mainly due to the fact that itis ‘clear’ text and not specific to any particularoperating system.
Tools to ‘parse’ XML (go through an XMLdocument to retrieve data for use in a localdatabase or use a local database to create an XMLfile) are now an integral part of every operatingsystem and freely available.
This means that you do not need to be usingMineIT software to make use of the framework.
You just need to understand how to create andread the XML data and create an interface betweenthem and your existing systems.
You can connect to our server and retrieve datafrom within an Excel spreadsheet for example.
An ‘open’ frame-work
By ensuring thatall of our datastructures areclearly defined andeasily available, it isvery easy for otherdevelopers to createinterfaces betweenexisting systemsand our framework.
It doesn’t matterwhat you havebehind the scenes,provided it can betransformed into afrag compliant withour metafragdefinitions you willbe able to send information to our server andretrieve information from it.
In this sense it is an ‘open’ framework as we arenot requiring that you use MineIT software toconnect to it. We will be making the knowledge ofhow to connect to the framework available to otherdevelopers.
Has this been done before?The framework we have developed is completely
original, and all of the technology used to develop ithas not been used together in an application of thiskind before.
Keep in mind that although the application isnew, the technology is not - we have simplydeveloped a new way of bringing it together.
A lot of the concepts are based on otheremerging standards (such as SOAP) but have beenmodified by us to make it more useful to thispar ticular application.
A ‘real world’ exampleCoalroc Contractors is an underground coal
mining contractor with offices in Mackay, QLD andWyong, NSW. They have had long running contractsat Newlands Southern Underground (who is also aMineIT client) in central Queensland.
Coalroc has spent a substantial amount of timeand money developing their internal competencybased training system built around the ITAB CULPs.
This system is backed up by the latest version ofthe MineIT Competency & Training System that isused to manage the information.
Coalroc, like most contractors, wanted to becapable of managing and storing all of thedocumentation concerning training at their headoffice while doing the actual training on-site.
As contracting isn’t typically a business with alarge IT budget they had very little existing structureto work with, and needed to end up with a flexiblesolution with minimal ongoing cost.
Their key requirements were as follows:
• Allow for the electronic transfer of competencyand employee information from head office toeach project site. The medium selected to do thiswas the internet using mesh.
• Offer the potential to develop an electronic‘relationship’ with each mine site worked at. All
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information stored in the head office databasewould be made available to each mine site toaudit at any time.
• Provide a means of communicating importantinformation both to and from the employeesthemselves. This includes current traininginformation, simple messages, importantdocumentation (ie risk assessments and safework procedures), work hours and also recordactivities were performed during each shift.Coalroc was the first of our clients to become
fully compliant with the electronic frameworkdefined in mesh.
This means that all of the skills, classifications,sites and locations used in their local databasewere compliant with those listed in our centraldatabase located on our server.
This gave them the ability to transfer employeeand competency information from their localdatabase into their secure area on our server. Thisthen made the information available to each oftheir projects who could access this informationafter logging into the Coalroc homepage.
Compliance also provided Coalroc with theability to package a group of employees into asingle file that could be sent to the trainingdepartment at Newlands and opened using theircopy of the MineIT Competency & Training system.
While the interface between Newlands andCoalroc’s database is still under discussion there isnow a means by which Coalroc can provideNewlands with information on training it hascarried out on an employee, and Newlands canthen electronically provide Coalroc with informationon site specific training it has carried out on thesame employee.
Coalroc then took the further step of asking usto build a touch-screen kiosk that would provide itsemployees with a means of accessing traininginformation, messages from head office andimportant documents.
This kiosk interfaces directly with the MineITinternet server through a dial up connection tomaintain up to date records from head office andalso sends information on employee hours andactivities.
Coalroc are now looking at using the informationcollected on employee activities to determine thecurrency of particular employee competencies.
All of this was only made possible once Coalrochad developed a standards based training systemto back up the electronic one and then agreed tocomply with MineIT standards for definingcompetencies and employees.
Clearly, in order for two different sites to shareinformation they must be talking the samelanguage, or calling a spade a spade if you like.
Our other underground contracting clients,Mastermyne and Ground Consolidation arefollowing a similar path and are fully compliant withthe MineIT standards.
How would a framework like this be implemented?The MineIT mesh framework has been developed
and is fully functional. This paper is not proposingthe development of such a framework, ratherexplaining how this existing framework can be
utilised to solve a problem. With this in mind manyof the issues inhibiting the implementation of sucha framework industry wide are primarilyadministrative, political and financial – nottechnical.
Administrative problems exist in the respect thateach individual site and contractor must decide ifthey wish to comply with the central list ofcompetencies defined by us and our existingclients.
This list is flexible and any site (MineIT client ornot) has the ability to request new competencies beadded.
The list is by no means complete and is a workin progress. This applies to our list ofclassifications, locations, sites and contractingcompanies.
If a site does decide that they do wish to complythey then need to move any existing informationover to the new codes and definitions and choose amethod of connecting to the framework.
Political and financial problems exist due to theadministrative problems defined above. Manycompanies and contractors have a considerableamount of money invested in existing systems andthese are often very inflexible.
The cost of having their developers add in theability to export or import frags compliant with ourdefinitions would be prohibitive in most cases. Thekey to overcoming this issue is to ensure that theadvantages gained by connecting to the frameworkoutweigh these costs or alternatively provide lowcost solutions to replace existing systems.
The other key concept is that a site does notnecessarily have to have their local databasecompliant to implement a solution to trackcontractor work hours and competency.
MineIT has a range of products that can beplaced on site that can be used to managecontractors’ separate from existing internalsystems.
Where to from here?MineIT will continue to offer secure mesh web
services to our existing clients regardless ofwhether it is adopted as a possible solutionindustry wide.
We will continue to work with our clients todevelop a centralised list of competencies that willthen enable them to communicate informationamongst themselves.
By centrally managing these commonly usedlists we can save our clients a considerable amountof general ‘administrative’ time and also allow newclients as quickly as possible.
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