The Problem
Heat stress is a growing threat to health and safety in mining operations, particularly as extreme weather events and record-breaking heatwaves become more frequent due to climate change. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures in physically demanding roles can lead to dehydration, reduced cognitive function, heat exhaustion, and even life-threatening conditions such as heat stroke. In the mining industry- where personal protective equipment (PPE), confined spaces, and remote environments are common—managing thermal load is both a regulatory necessity and an ethical imperative.

Traditionally, managing heat stress has relied on retrospective analysis, generalised risk assessments, or static environmental readings that do not account for site-specific or individual factors. These outdated approaches often lead to delayed intervention, increased recordable injuries, and reduced productivity.

The problem was identified through feedback from MX3’s mining clients, field data on hydration testing, and a growing number of global studies linking climate conditions to occupational heat-related illness. While MX3’s existing hydration testing system enabled real-time assessment of individual hydration levels, clients highlighted the need for a comprehensive toolkit that could combine predictive analytics, individual risk profiling, and proactive training into a cohesive heat stress management strategy.

The Solution
In response, MX3 Diagnostics developed the Heat Stress Management Toolkit, a proprietary software solution designed to help mining companies move from reactive to proactive heat stress management. The toolkit integrates three synergistic modules:
- Heat map Page: This module delivers real-time environmental monitoring. It displays site-specific readings for apparent temperature. Predictive algorithms help forecast risk levels throughout the day. Custom alerts notify teams when thresholds are exceeded, empowering supervisors to act before incidents occur.
- Monitoring Page: This feature combines real-time environmental data with individual worker profiles to generate dynamic thermal risk assessments aligned with the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists (AIOH) standards. By automating the integration of heat exposure thresholds and individualised risk factors - including job role, hydration status, and location - the Monitoring Page enables companies to operationalise the AIOH framework with greater ease and accuracy. This allows for the identification of high-risk combinations of workers, tasks, and environmental conditions, supporting timely interventions such as task rotation, hydration scheduling, or shift adjustments, all based on live data rather than static assumptions.
- MX3 University: A customisable education and compliance module, MX3 University offers training content developed to support onboarding, regulatory alignment, and ongoing education in heat stress prevention, providing multilingual and industry-specific content to suit diverse workforces.

Resources and Development Process
The toolkit was developed using internal software engineering resources and in consultation with external occupational safety advisors and industrial hygienists. MX3 engaged beta partners in mining and heavy industry sectors to test and refine the toolkit in real-world conditions.

Methods of Trialling and Testing
The system was tested in partnership with early adopter organisations across Australia Including Komatsu Global. Real-world feedback was gathered from field safety officers, environmental health professionals, and frontline workers. Metrics were tracked over a closed beta period.

Implementation
Implementation was designed for ease and speed. The Toolkit is deployed through the MX3 Portal using existing customer accounts, allowing MX3 customers to opt-in without reimplementing user accounts. Once activated, users can configure site profiles, upload worker data, and begin receiving live risk insights immediately. Alerts can be viewed on desktop or mobile devices, ensuring access even in remote locations.

Hierarchy of Control
The Toolkit supports the hierarchy of control in several key ways:
Elimination/Substitution: Forecasting high-risk periods enables rescheduling, additional heat stress measures or halting work where feasible.
- Engineering Controls: Live environemtnal data allows for optimisation of ventilation, shade structures, or cooling systems.
- Administrative Controls: The Monitoring Page guides decisions on job rotation, hydration scheduling, and break timing.
- Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Data from the Toolkit supports selection of appropriate heat-adapted PPE and cooling garments.

Benefits/Effects
Safety and Health Benefits
Since implementing the Toolkit in beta, partner organisations have reported a measurable decrease in heat-related incidents. For instance, Komatsu Global, a major mining manufacturing company in NSW and QLD, reported that the data provided by the Heat Stress Toolkit provided more actionable outcomes and easier management of heat stress risks in their groups in Mossvale, Rutherford and Rockhampton sites during the 2025 beta period - marking a substantial improvement. Komatsu Global reported that employees took to the toolkit well and helped maintain safety compliance standards across the sites.

Deployment Across Sites
The Toolkit has been deployed at several sites during the beta phase. Feedback indicates that both field supervisors and health & safety teams find the system intuitive and actionable.
The centralised dashboard allows companies with multiple sites to compare heat stress metrics and standardise responses across their operations.

Transferability
The Heat Stress Management Toolkit has been designed with adaptability in mind. It is fully transferable across the resources industry- including mining, oil & gas, construction, and utilities - due to its modular, cloud-based architecture and minimal setup requirements.
Transfer can be achieved through:
- Inclusion in existing safety management systems (SMS)
- Direct use through the MX3 portal (requiring only internet access)
- Integration with MX3’s portable hydration and sweat testing products
The Toolkit’s data-driven framework also supports integration with third-party enterprise systems, allowing for expansion and customisation based on company needs.

Innovation
Originality
The Heat Stress Management Toolkit represents a first-of-its-kind integration of real-time environmental data, individual risk profiling, predictive AI, and training into a unified platform. While many tools exist to measure heat index or provide hydration guidelines, MX3 is the only provider offering:
- Personalised risk scoring based on environmental and biometric data
- Predictive alerts for high-risk heat scenarios
- Embedded training and compliance modules in the same ecosystem
By offering predictive risk analytics, not just passive monitoring, the Toolkit enables earlier and more effective interventions. This represents a paradigm shift in occupational heat stress management - from reaction to prevention.

Approximate Cost
Currently, the toolkit is free of charge and is included in MX3’s current portal. There are no upfront hardware costs, and setup requires only an internet connection.
For organisations already using MX3 hydration or sweat testing systems, the Toolkit adds significant value at no additional cost.

Exhaust lagging has historically been used in mining to insulate machinery, reduce heat, and mitigate fire risks. However, over time, this practice has become a significant health and maintenance issue, releasing inhalable fibres and increasing respiratory risks.
At a coal Mine in Queensland, maintenance teams raised concerns about fibre exposure, prolonged servicing times, and inefficiencies caused by lagging to there SSHR. Collaborating with Dr. Nikky LaBranche and the Mines Inspectorate, we developed a proactive solution: To remove exhaust lagging where practicable and adopting safer alternatives such as ceramic coatings, metal heat shields, fire-resistant surface treatments,RS23 recognised hose burst protection ,Dual skin exhaust components and advanced fire prevention strategies.
Aligned with safety standards RS14, RS20, and RS23, our solution significantly improves workplace health and efficiency, offering broad applicability across the mining industry.

The Problem: The Burden of Exhaust Lagging
Maintenance crews faced numerous issues with exhaust lagging, including:
• Mandatory Full PPE: Protective suits and respirators were essential due to airborne fibres.
• Skin Irritation: Direct contact caused significant skin irritation.
• Extended Inspection Times: Removal and reinstallation increased maintenance duration by up to 50%.
• Waste & Disposal: Premature disposal due to rapid degradation, contributing to approximately 100 kg of waste annually per vehicle.
• Fire Hazards: Damaged lagging increased the risk of fires by absorbing oils and fuel mist.
• Extended Downtime: Machines experienced on average 50% more downtime due to extensive maintenance procedures.
Exhaust lagging, originally intended as a protective measure, was now identified as a substantial respiratory hazard, especially related to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), now the fastest growing mine dust lung disease in Queensland with 101 new cases reported in FY24. Research has confirmed significant health risks from inhaled particles and fibres, particularly those with a length-to-diameter ratio greater than 3:1.
Testing by Dr. Nikky LaBranche, utilizing Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), confirmed a significant increase in airborne fibres and broken particles in aged lagging samples. Literature further indicated a potential transformation of amorphous silica into cristobalite—a harmful form of crystalline silica known to cause lung diseases—under prolonged heat exposure. Although TEM and XRD analysis found no immediate presence of cristobalite in our samples, these findings underscored the need for proactive risk elimination.

Solution & Implementation
Recognizing these risks, we strategically removed exhaust lagging, introducing:
• Phased Removal Strategy: Initially targeting high-risk machinery.
• Alternative Safety Measures: Ceramic coatings, metal heat shields, fire-resistant surface coatings, hose burst protection, routine thermal imaging,Dual skin exhaust components and frequent engine bay inspections.
• Education & Training: personnel trained in fibre risks and new safety practices.
• Comprehensive Air Quality Monitoring: Measured before-and-after particulate levels.
• Continuous Improvement: Regular audits, worker feedback, and air quality assessments ensuring compliance with RS14, RS20, and RS23.

Results & Impact
Removing lagging can yield measurable benefits:
• Health Improvements: 50% reduction in airborne particulates.
• Reduced PPE Burden: Eliminated need for full-body suits and respirators during routine inspections.
• Operational Efficiency: Inspections are 80% quicker, with overall machine downtime reduced by approximately 30%.
• Cost Savings: Achieved 20% annual maintenance cost savings, translating to substantial financial benefits.
• Environmental Impact: Decreased waste by approximately 100 kg annually per vehicle.
This initiative has transformed safety culture, encouraging proactive hazard identification and elimination.
Transferability & Industry Impact
The solution offers significant potential across mining operations:
• Simple implementation process.
• Proven effectiveness with tangible results.
• Applicable wherever exhaust lagging is employed, ensuring broad industry adoption.
Conclusion
The removal of exhaust lagging represents a critical advancement in mining safety and health practices, delivering significant health, operational, and environmental benefits.
✅ Improved Worker Health
✅ Enhanced Safety and Maintenance Efficiency
✅ Compliance with Regulatory Standards RS14, RS20, RS23
✅ Significant Reduction in Waste and Costs
We proudly submit this innovative initiative to the QMIHSC Health Awards, confident in its potential for positive impact industry wide.

FMS Group – Rostering and fatigue management software solution
As a major maintenance contractor servicing the mining and resources sectors FMS Group manage in excess of 600 workers, who undertake maintenance activities and shutdown works for a number of mining clients across a large number of mine sites throughout Australia.
Fatigue has long been recognized as a hazard in the mining industry, and as an industry we all proactively seek solutions and control strategies. A key element of managing this multifaceted hazard is Job Design – specifically rostering (developed for) and working hours (undertaken by) our people. Comprehensive research has been undertaken by industry and individual companies and resources have been established that provide clear guidance on fatigue management & working hours guidelines.
However, how do companies (particularly contracting partners working across multiple clients and sites) effectively manage fatigue and ensure compliance with the varied working hours guidelines established at individual sites? How do companies ensure the provision of safe working hours for our people, ensuring health, safety and psychosocial wellbeing are imbedded in our rostering activities?
FMS (like many organisations) were managing this significant fatigue hazard through the use of spreadsheets. This complex and resource intensive activity of rostering 600 workers and ensuring compliance to more than 50 Fatigue / Working Hours Protocols was not being managed effectively through the use of excel. This level of risk was not accepted by the FMS leadership team. A customized solution was required to ensure we managed our workers fatigue during rostering activities.
The FMS team went to the market to find a solution, however no ‘off the shelf’ product existed to support a company with 600+ employees working across 50+ sites with extensive fatigue management / working hours protocols. A dedicated project team was established and under the guidance of business leaders this team was successful in engaging with an existing software provider – Biarri. Biarri accepted our challenge to customize their existing platform to meet the fatigue management challenge.
Across a period of 12 months FMS and Biarri tested, trialed and implemented a customized rostering and fatigue management software solution – Biarri Workforce (‘Biarri’). Biarri, is a cloud-based scheduling and workforce optimisation platform that enables data-driven planning, promotes compliance (fatigue and training), and enhances operational efficiency across all project sites.
The engagement of the project team included key operational personnel to ensure that knowledge and experience in the complexity of multiple fatigue guidelines was well understood and a baseline of data was built to the backend of Biarri, reflecting the complex working hours guidelines of 50+client sites.
Biarri allows us to develop tailored rostering plans that ensure all roles and responsibilities are appropriately allocated while factoring in fatigue management, shift limits, and site-specific rules. The software applies configurable rostering rules that are able to be aligned with enterprise agreements, client requirements, and legislative fatigue standards, automatically flagging any potential non-compliance.
The platform provides real-time visibility of employee availability and accumulated hours, enabling us to monitor workload and ensure fair, balanced scheduling across teams. This allows for quick adjustments in response to unplanned absences, leave requests, or scope changes - maintaining both continuity and compliance.
Biarri flags every potential breach of fatigue guidelines in real time (looking forward and back across extended date ranges). The system monitors these potential breaches simultaneously based on the sites the worker is rostered to and is thereby able to flag an individual breach of any single sites guidelines (irrespective of the number of sites a worker is rostered to).
In addition to real time alerting, FMS has developed reports for ongoing monitoring and management of fatigue (through the export of data from Biarri to Azure data lake)- to ensure ongoing compliance. This is a powerful tool and allows Divisions to quickly review status of rosters and compliance with fatigue guidelines on a regular basis, whilst assisting in fatigue audits for verification of compliance.
The project team rolled out the system on a Division by Division basis, with ongoing improvements required to meet the differing operational requirements of each division; and to reflect the varied client and site fatigue guidelines. The system is now fully operational across FMS, servicing our teams in Queensland and Western Australia.
FMS have full confidence that we are managing the fatigue risks associated with rostering our people across the mining industry. We are able to provide this confidence to our client base – who rightly, should feel concern about contractors working across multiple sites and their management of worker fatigue and working hours per individual site working hours guidelines.
Biarri is primarily a robust Administrative control within the hierarchy of control; however, it is important to note that indirectly it is an Elimination level control. The use of Biarri rostering software has eliminated the potential for unknowingly rostering our people to excessive shifts / hours of work - excessive hours of work which directly contribute to fatigue hazards.
FMS share this innovation with the Mining Industry as fatigue and working hours management is an industrywide risk. Clients and contract partners alike are grappling with the need to systematically and transparently roster our people, ensuring we robustly manage working hours protocols to ensure we are managing the associated risk of fatigue.
FMS’s diversity of client base and breadth of site access renders us a complex business for the management of working hours in compliance with internal and external working hours guidelines and regulatory requirements. Biarri is able to meet our extensive needs and expectations.
This software solution is readily transferable to other industries and sectors ensuring they are supporting their people to manage the risk of fatigue through robust and transparent rostering practices.
This is an innovative solution; other rostering platforms have been established based on the scheduling requirements. Biarri is a human centric solution, focused on managing the health and wellbeing of our people and ensuring compliance with working hours guidelines.
FMS invested $170,000 on the implementation of Biarri (with ongoing annual subscriptions of $30,000); however, this figure is not reflective of the commitment between FMS and Biarri to innovatively customize an existing platform and implement a solution that met the complex needs of FMS’ (and our clients) fatigue/hours of work requirements.
Both parties in partnership spent countless hours and resources in development, implementation and improvement. The project team had dedicated personnel allocated for the 12 month period (these costs are not reflected).
The final outcome of such a commitment is a robust system that meets the fatigue rostering needs of a diverse client base and can develop to meet future growth needs of FMS Group.