Enhancing Safety in Mining Construction
TOOLS, IMPLEMENTATION, AND OPPORTUNITIES
The mining construction industry, and the more general construction industry, has developed a wide array of safety tools and mechanisms designed to protect workers and minimise risks. These tools encompass both procedural and technological measures. A random sample of what I am referring to includes:
1. Policies and Procedures: Frameworks outlining clear safety expectations, responsibilities, and compliance requirements.
2. Job Safety Analysis (JSA): Structured evaluations of tasks to identify hazards and establish effective control measures.
3. Safe Work Method Statements (SWMS): Documents that detail high-risk activities, associated hazards, and their mitigations.
4. Pre-Task Risk Assessments (Take 5): Simple, on-the-spot evaluations encouraging workers to assess risks immediately before starting work.
5. Induction and Refresher Training: Comprehensive site-specific and ongoing education to maintain awareness of hazards and controls.
6. High Risk and White Card Training: Mandatory certification in Australia, ensuring fundamental knowledge of construction safety and hazards.
7. Verification of Competency (VOC): Practical assessments ensuring workers possess the required skills and certifications for specific tasks.
8. Digital Safety Systems: Platforms to streamline incident reporting, compliance tracking, and risk management.
9. Behaviour-Based Safety (BBS): Programs that promote safe behaviours through monitoring, feedback, and positive reinforcement.
10. Fatigue Management Systems: Initiatives to address the risks associated with long hours and demanding work conditions.
11. Emergency Preparedness: Site-specific emergency response plans with regular drills to ensure readiness.
12. Advanced PPE and Technology: Innovations such as wearable safety devices to monitor workers’ health and environmental conditions.
These tools are critical for risk mitigation, yet their effectiveness hinges on proper implementation.
What happens when the workforce meets the work?
Incident investigation report will have comments like:
“Comprehensive Risk Assessment must be completed for all tasks to identify any hazards present with controls to remove / reduce the risk of stored energy. If conditions change Risk Assessment must be reviewed and revised.”
“Supervisor did not provide adequate and documented instruction to complete the task safely”
“No JSA was conducted to identify and control potential hazards for safe task completion;
“Equipment operator was not inducted”
In more serious cases that end in prosecution by regulators (Home-WorkSafe- DEMIRS):
“The court heard that neither of the workers involved in this incident had completed any specific training with respect to exclusion zones”
“The court heard that no risk assessment was done prior to the work commencing and that no fall protection was provided.”
The Importance of Effective Implementation
While the tools themselves are robust, their potential often remains unrealised due to inconsistencies in application and adherence. Key challenges in implementation include:
1. Inconsistent Use: Safety tools such as JSAs and SWMS may be completed as a formality rather than used as active guides for risk management.
2. Insufficient Training: Workers and supervisors may lack a deep understanding of how to effectively utilise safety systems.
3. Lack of Enforcement: Supervisory oversight is often inadequate, allowing unsafe practices to persist.
4. Cultural Barriers: Complacency or resistance to change can undermine even the most advanced safety initiatives.
Focusing on the effective deployment of existing tools is crucial.
Persistent Safety Incidents in Mining Construction
Despite the tools available, mining construction continues to experience safety incidents, often attributable to systematic issues:
1. Human Factors: Fatigue, miscommunication, and insufficient training frequently erode the efficacy of safety measures.
2. Gaps in Oversight: Lack of rigorous supervision can result in lapses in safety practices.
3. Overreliance on Administrative Controls: The industry often defaults to less effective measures, such as paperwork, instead of prioritising engineering or elimination controls. Controls are not implemented with the hierarchy of control in mind.
These incidents emphasise the need for not just better tools but also a stronger commitment to implementing existing ones effectively.
Recommendations for Enhanced Implementation
Drawing insights from the Brady Report, here are targeted recommendations for optimizing safety tool usage:
1. Embed Tools in Daily Practices: Ensure safety tools like SWMS and JSAs are actively discussed, understood, and applied at the operational level.
2. Enhance Training: Focus on task-specific training to ensure workers and supervisors are equipped to utilise safety tools effectively.
3. Strengthen Supervisory Oversight: Empower supervisors with the skills and authority to enforce proper safety practices consistently.
4. Simplify Processes: Streamline tools and systems to reduce administrative burden and improve engagement.
5. Adopt High Reliability Organisational (HRO) Principles: Utilize near-miss data and real-time reporting to proactively identify and address risks.
6. Prioritise Effective Controls: Transition from administrative measures to higher-order controls such as engineering solutions and hazard elimination.
7. Improve Metrics: Move beyond Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) to metrics like Serious Accident Frequency Rate to better reflect safety outcomes.
Conclusion
The mining construction industry has no shortage of safety tools, but their true value lies in effective implementation. By embedding these tools into daily operations, fostering a culture of accountability, and prioritising continuous improvement, the industry can significantly reduce incidents and move closer to achieving a zero-fatality standard.
The path forward requires not just the adoption of tools but a relentless focus on their proper application. An opportunity for leaders in the industry to set a new standard in safety excellence.
OHS requires that employees, contractors and visitors to a site be protected from harm. We all know this!
There are as many ways to go about this as there are sites. We also know this!
The generally agreed method for determining the best way to approach the OHS hazards is via the Hierarchy of controls. There are many examples, but the version on the left is from the DMIRS, the Safety Regulator in Western Australia.
Image credit: https://www.commerce.wa.gov.au/atom/4194
The judicious application of the Hierarchy is essential.
EXAMPLE:
A mine site had a near miss when a crane was packing up its fly-jib. Presumably, the fly-jib was the best tool for the task being undertaken. Unfortunately, the fly-jib was dropped, resulting in the near-miss. The solution selected was the ban all fly-jibs fitted to cranes. Not just not used, but removed. They eliminated the hazard.
❓ Was this the best control method from the investigation?
❓ Were there other learnings from the investigation that could be communicated and applied by the workgroups?
❓ Was there any unintended consequence of this one control??
While elimination is the first line of defence, this is not the only card to be played in developing a safety solution.
We can prevent dangerous equipment from being used or installed on-site, but ultimately, there will still be hazards.
Mining hazards will always exist, so we need to be smart about their management.
The AS4024 Safety of Machinery Series provides the standard of how to go about managing OHS aspects of conveyor safety. The most relevant from the series is AS4024.3611 Conveyors – Belt Conveyors for Bulk Material Handling.
In application, complications are introduced when dealing with multiple pieces of adjacent equipment with different hazards and differing access and operational needs. This is particularly an issue on older sites that have a range of legacy issues.
The nature of a site can change over time. Modification, upgrades, redundancy, wear and tear, maintenance, personnel or procedural changes, or in the worst case, neglect, all change the nature of the hazards and their controls. Small changes are insidious and may go unnoticed for some time, possible only being realised during an incident investigation or a site inspection by DMIRS.
At Verum Project and Engineering, we don’t sell products, we provide solutions and piece of mind. We provide a fresh sent of eye to inspect your plant, in the state it is today, and we make risk-assessed recommendations to address deficiencies.
"It takes leadership to improve safety."