Supporting our partnerships

We felt extremely positive about our attendance at this year’s EFEE World Conference on Explosives and Blasting, which was held at the Royal Dublin Society from 9th to 12th September. This was the federation’s 12th international blasting event, attracting explosives users, manufacturers and drilling equipment operators, together with construction and mining industry professionals from around the world.

2023’s event held particular significance for EPC-UK in a relationship building capacity, as our team was supporting not only the presence of the wider EPC Groupe, but also our sister company in Ireland, Kemek. 

Exhibiting collaboratively, we demonstrated our latest, ground-breaking technologies, including the value added benefits of our VERTEX© solution and our SmartTrucks with Machine Advisor capabilities. Positively, we also chose EFEE as the platform to announce the imminent launch of the IQ’s new handbook, a venture EPC-UK has been proud to be involved in.  It was also our choice event to release details of the IQ’s forthcoming Blasting Diploma, which we’ve been integral to devising in association with the University of Derby.

Tech on tour

VERTEX

Our team used touch screen demonstrations to talk the event’s participants through EPC-UK’s VERTEX solution, which combines platforms EXPERTIR©, EXPERTAB™ and EXPLORE™ to upload, analyse and store information and optimise relevant blast performance. Providing easier access to information that can be centrally stored, VERTEX offers the ability to leverage data that can achieve blast improvements in terms of fragmentation and vibration. It helps users learn from previous blast performance, track KPIs, and have sight and knowledge of previously blasted areas; with the additional digital benefit of enabling clearer customer communication.  

EPC Metrics

EPC-UK’s consultancy division, EPC Metrics, is a team of expert engineers with the skill and knowledge to guide customers through VERTEX’s capabilities and, importantly, use its EXPLORE element to capture the data and KPIs that can streamline their mine-to-mill results. By ensuring a fully optimised blast, entire site performance is enhanced, and costs and environmental impact are reduced. 

SmartTrucks and Machine Advisor

EPC-UK has systematically and successfully worked on a project to wi-fi enable our entire fleet of multiblend trucks, so vehicles, operators and customers can benefit from real time site interaction with VERTEX technology. The Machine Advisor software now ‘onboard’ allows for remote tracking and can capture product performance and specification data directly from the trucks. The ability to perform live reporting during loading, capture as-loaded data and even modify recipe data is advancing operations. Furthermore, the technology is helping to improve fleet management as well as remote diagnostics and preventative maintenance planning. EPC-UK’s Machine Advisor is making digitalized information sharing between our departments possible, including Accounts, and the data collected can also help monitor stock control and support monthly stock checks.

Knowledge for the future

Also, at this year’s EFEE we announced the progress being made to bring the IQ’s Blasting Diploma in Surface Mining Explosives Engineering to fruition, in collaboration with EPC-UK and the University of Derby Centre for Mineral Products. 

The one-year programme of three single modules, totalling 60 level five credits, will cover content on Geology, Surveying and Drilling Operations; Explosives & Blasting Operations; and Safety, Health, Environment and Sustainability. The fully online course has been devised in response to the explosives products and services industry’s need for globally recognised qualifications to improve competence.  This has led EPC-UK, the Institute of Quarrying and the University of Derby to build a partnership to realise the Diploma, developed using the successful operating principles of the C4MP programmes. It will provide a route for UK, EU and International candidates, either already employed or looking to pursue a career in the industry, to develop their skills and competence, supported by a recognised qualification. For further information visit the IQ at www.quarrying.org/explosives

The latest IQ handbook launch

As part of its educational remit, the Institute of Quarrying has for decades produced a range of content specific books designed to further enable and educate those involved in commercial blasting within the surface extraction environment.

At this September’s EFEE the Institute launched its third iteration of the Explosives in Quarrying Handbook, a new version that has been rewritten with the support and input of EPC-UK. The book’s revised chapters cover subjects including Explosives Basics; Types of Explosives; Initiation Systems; Explosives Legislation; Quarries Regulations; Surveying; Blast Design and Specification; Dangerous Occurrences; Shotfiring; Additional Blasting Techniques; Geology and Blasting; and the Environmental Impact of Blasting.

EPC-UK’s own Dr. Rob Farnfield and Dr. Liam Bermingham, alongside the IQ’s Julian Smallshaw, have been instrumental in providing reviewed and updated information to make the book’s revision possible, providing a valuable aid to anyone undertaking the IQ Diploma in Surface Mining Explosives Engineering and the Foundation Degree in Mineral Extractives Technology. Operations Managers, Quarry Managers, Explosives Supervisors, Shotfirers and Contractors will also be able to use the book as a vital guide to our industry’s latest technologies and best practice. 

The right relationships

With many of EPC-UK, EPC Groupe and Kemek’s pivotal stakeholders and suppliers in attendance at EFEE 2023, we took the opportunity this year to further connections, our supply chain quality, and share technical knowledge in off-stand meeting and innovation rooms. Here we could strengthen existing relationships and build upon new ones, as well as have the chance to give ‘walk through’ demonstrations of our tech in finer detail.  The EFEE event also created an ideal platform for us to highlight our business continuity standards to suppliers and key partners, including ISO 22301, demonstrating that the products imported by EPC-UK are optimal and latest generation.  

“It’s been a real pleasure to be part of EFEE this year,” EPC-UK’s Managing Director, Ben Williams said. “Our industry is better placed to advance and improve when the desire to progress its capabilities are collaborative. Our unified attendance with EPC Groupe and Kemek bolstered our exhibition team with a real sense of togetherness and camaraderie, reinforcing our SPIRIT values of Safety, Passion, Integrity, Respect, Innovation and Teamwork. It also built anticipation of what we have the joint capacity to achieve in advancing our dynamic and evolving sector by prioritising people first, the planet and ultimately profit to create a more sustainable industry future.”