Spillard News

Being able to operate a machine safely involves a lot of skill from the 

driver, including good coordination and excellent spacial awareness. 

Anything that can improve conditions for the operator have to be a good 

thing, in particular providing aids to visibility both to the working 

area and all around the machine. 

As with so many safety issues, it is too late to have a look at the way 

you work after someone has been injured or worse. All contractors 

should carry out regular risk assessments to focus on their individual 

site conditions and machinery. What works on one site may not be ideal 

for the next. 

In opencast mining, the site can remain very much the same for a number 

of years. In some ways that makes it easier to instil safe practices as 

the conditions and machinery are not constantly changing. Typically 

though opencast involves some pretty big machinery, and operating it 

safely takes a measured approach from management and the operators 

themselves. 

For Kier Construction, and in particular the firm’s mining division 

Kier Minerals, safety is king. “Safety is number one for us,” says 

Greenburn OCCS works manager Harry Simpson. “Whatever we need on this 

site, we get.” 

It’s a policy that is paying off too. Simpson says that between the 

current site at Greenburn and the one that he was at before, he has 

presided over four years without a reportable accident, a claim that 

few site managers could match. 

Central to site safety at Greenburn is visibility. Opencast mining 

equipment is big machinery, it’s easy to lose a Land Rover from your 

mirrors when you’re in the cab of a 100 tonne rigid dump truck or a 300 

tonne face shovel, and even easier to lose sight of a man walking 

around the machine. 

Every piece of plant on the site therefore gets fitted with every 

available visibility aid, from convex mirrors to full closed circuit 

camera systems. And it’s quite a fleet of plant. 

There are three prime movers on the site, a recently commissioned 

Komatsu PC3000 on backhoe duty and two Demag 255S excavators, one set 

up as a face shovel and one in backhoe configuration. These are loading 

a fleet of eight Caterpillar 777D 100 tonne rigid dump trucks and three 

777B 80 tonners. The haul roads and tipping area are being maintained 

by a Cat 16H grader and three D9R dozers. 

In addition the site is using a Cat 345 excavator, a 320 and two 325 

coal shovels. The coal is being hauled by a fleet of five Caterpillar 

D400 articulated trucks to Kier’s own disposal point where Cat 980G 

wheeled loaders blend the coal and load it into road haulage trucks and 

rail wagons. 

With such a predominance of Cat machinery on site, it will come as no 

surprise to find that dealer Finning has three service staff based in 

workshops at Greenburn at all times. Komatsu also has a fitter based on 

the site to look after the PC3000 and the two Demags. 

Providing vision aids for such a wide variety of machines has fallen to 

Finning’s preferred supplier Spillard Safety Systems, which has 

recently equipped the new Komatsu with two separate closed circuit 

camera systems, a rollover restraint system, convex mirrors and a 

movement alarm. 

The giant Komatsu tips the scales at 253 tonnes, and is equipped with a 

15cu m bucket at Greenburn. It boasts 1,260hp of power, enough to rip 

through the blasted material and load the 777 dump trucks with ease, so 

keeping out of range is an important consideration when operating with 

the machine. 

With a new piece of equipment Spillard would normally carry out an 

onsite risk assessment, to see what safety kit is required. However the 

PC3000 is basically a modern version of the two Demags on the same 

site, so the firm knew exactly what would be needed from past 

experience. 

The TV systems use the latest Optronics 140mm colour LCD screens, 

mounted side by side above the main console in the cab. Colour screens 

offer a big improvement over the old mono screens, as it is much easier 

to see a fluorescent jacket in colour. The Optronics cameras are 

equipped with night sight, out to a distance of 10m, which is an 

essential for a machine working long hours in the depths of winter. 

The PC3000 has one camera mounted at the rear of the machine and one to 

the right hand side, the operator can see down the left hand side of 

the machine using the convex mirror mounted outside the cab. This 

combination provides the operator with a remarkably good range of 

vision around the massive machine, making it easier to operate and 

safer for all concerned. 

Greenburn opencast coal site is situated near Ayr in Scotland. Kier 

started work there some 16 months ago, and has planning permission for 

a further five years of coaling on the 450 hectare site. At present the 

excavation is running at around 45m below the surrounding ground level, 

though the bottom seams will be found at around 60m down. 

However before any digging even started, Kier had to build a 1km 

roadway for local farmers, running around the site, and lay 3.5km of 

railway to join the disposal point up to the main rail network. 

Unusually Kier even built an underpass under local roads to allow the 

D400 coal haulers to run to the disposal point without having to cross 

public roads. 

Kier is working a number of coal seams at Greenburn, with depths from 

100mm to 0.5m. The site has an overburden to coal ratio of around 14:1, 

so there is plenty of work for the heavy plant to be getting on with, 

shifting a mix of sandstone, shales and mudstone. At present Kier is 

extracting 12,000-14,000 tonnes of coal every week, the majority of 

which goes out by rail from its own railhead at the disposal point. 

Despite the remote location, Kier ensures that all of its machine 

operators are trained to CPCS levels, again no doubt contributing to 

that enviable safety record. 

While cameras, mirrors and other forms of vision aid are welcome 

additions to any piece of plant, they are not always necessary, 

particularly on smaller kit. Pete Spillard, managing director of 

Spillard Safety Systems, admits that there is no actual regulation that 

dictates exactly what should be fitted to a specific machine. 

He says that it is down to the person running the equipment to carry 

out a risk assessment and decide what they require for their machine in 

their circumstances. “A belt and braces approach, with cameras and 

mirrors, is not always necessary,” he says. “In fact sometimes it can 

be a distraction for the operator.” 

Despite obviously wanting to sell safety equipment, he adds: “We object 

to a blanket belt and braces approach, it’s detrimental to business.” 

Instead he believes there is a process of education that needs to be 

done, both for owners of equipment and for operators. They need to be 

made aware of the risks and of what is available to combat them. 

That said, the company offers a wide range of camera systems, mirrors, 

proximity radars and movement alarms for a range of industries. 

Spillard says that the HSE’s ‘rule of thumb’1m by 1m system works well, where an 

operator should be able to see someone standing 1m away from the 

machine at a height of 1m above the ground. If you can’t, then the 

chances are you might need some sort of vision aid.