Glenda Abraham – Chief Engagement Officer, Mine Super

ABSTRACT

In addition to the substantial personal costs, poor financial wellness is a major drag on Australian businesses, costing an estimated $33 billion per annum. According to Workplace Super Specialists of Australia’s ‘Workplace Financial Wellness Index’, employees who lack financial wellness tend to be more stressed, as observed by more than three in five employers (63.3%). A significant number of employers also noted presenteeism (43.3%), low morale (30%), and absenteeism (16.7%) as other consequences of poor financial wellness. This data clearly shows a connection between tired, disengaged and distracted employees and an increase in work health safety incidents. This presentation will help you integrate a financial wellness program as part of a holistic approach to employee wellbeing and a component of a healthy workplace.

Dr Snezana Bajic – Technical Services Manager, Simtars

ABSTRACT

There have been many mine disasters in the last century, globally. The common issues faced by mine rescue teams is re-entering the mine to rescue or recover. This paper will focus on actions and risks associated to decisions made during a past major mine disaster in south Serbia, in a small mining community in Aleksinac. The mine was opened by Djordje Dimitrijevic and Johan Apel on 28th May 1883, for coal to supply Aleksinac Brewery. The first accident occurred in 1924, where 10 miners died. The second accident was in 1983, where 34 lives were lost. The entire north sector morning shift of 90 coal miners were lost at 11:59am on Friday 17th November 1989. The cause of this disaster can be attributed to a negligence and a fire which ignited coal dust in the “Morava” shaft panel number 445, 700m below the surface. The rescue teams risked their lives to recover the bodies of the victims to the surface in 25 days. They entered with minimal knowledge of the underground atmosphere and conditions. The disaster influenced the decision to close the mine in 1990 despite the 27 million tonnes available coal reserves. On this pleasant and sunny day, 90 families lost their beloved and 132 kids were left without fathers. “We, miners, have a nice greeting “Srećno” (Good luck), and yet we have no luck” stated the late deputy Vukoje Marković, just few days before he lost his life in this terrible mine disaster.

Roseanne Baxter – Occupational Therapist, Encompass Therapy Holly Whitelaw – Data Collection Officer, Glencore Coal Assets Australia

ABSTRACT

Dozer operation at surface mining operations has traditionally been considered one of the higher risk tasks undertaken in the surface coal mining industry due to exposure to significant levels of whole-body vibration. As per Australian Standard AS2760.1, SafeWork Australia promotes the practice of regular monitoring of whole-body vibration levels and encourages employers to minimise workers’ exposure levels to below levels associated with increased risk of health affects. Although not legally binding, these limits are considered benchmarks in industry monitoring reports. Recent published Australian research has shown a large spread of exposure levels, some of which exceeded recognised limits for likely health effects. A research project has been undertaken to gather whole-body vibration data matched to video and operator survey to investigate which tasks and in what ground conditions are dozer operators at a surface mining operation exposed to the higher levels of whole-body vibration. This provides rationale for prioritisation of allocation of controls targeted at the tasks and/or ground conditions associated with higher wholebody vibration readings. Discussion regarding the range of data analysis methods currently referred to in research and industry reporting is advocated to improve consistency of reporting and understanding of results.

Dr Sean Brady – Managing Director, Brady Heywood Pty Ltd Sean is a forensic engineer that specialises in identifying the cause of structural engineering failures. He is a Board Member of the Society of Construction Law Australia and a Member of the Singapore International Mediation Centre’s panel of experts. He is a practising Chartered Professional Engineer, a member of the Editorial Board of the ASCE Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities and the ICE Forensic Engineering Journal. He has published internationally on forensics for both engineering and legal audiences and is a visiting lecturer at Queensland University of Technology’s Business School and the University of Melbourne’s Law School.

Prof Robin Burgess-Limerick – Professor of Human Factors, The University of Queensland

ABSTRACT

Operators of earth-moving equipment at surface mines are exposed to whole-body vibration. Prolonged exposure to high amplitude whole-body vibration accumulates to cause adverse health effects, particularly back disorders. The potential for instantaneous high impact loading also exists and these high impacts (jolts and jars) experienced by earth-moving equipment operators may cause acute injury. ACARP project C23022 successfully demonstrated the use of an iOS application (WBV) as a cost-effective means of measuring whole-body vibration. An extension of this work is underway which enables continuous communication of the accelerations to which equipment operators are exposed to a central server to facilitate the management of both whole-body vibration and instantaneous impacts. The server software will undertake further analysis and provide an alert in the event that a high amplitude impact on the operator is detected, or when the daily vibration dose approaches the upper limit of the ISO2631.1 Health Guidance Caution Zone. The vibration data will also be combined with GPS data to allow further analysis of the sources of elevated whole-body vibration levels and high impact incidents.

Prof. Robin Burgess-Limerick – Professor of Human Factors, Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre, The University of Queensland

ABSTRACT

Proximity advisory systems have potential to reduce collision risks associated with surface mining haul-trucks by assisting truck drivers to maintain situation awareness. The design of the visual interface by which information is provided is likely to influence the effectiveness of such systems. During ACARP project C24028, a range of information sources were reviewed including best practice guidelines from other industries. The consequences of different visual interfaces were examined when drivers were presented with potential collision scenarios via a modified haul-truck simulator (Figure 1). Additional information available in a Schematic proximity advisory visual interface was utilised by drivers to reduce collision risk and braking force and decrease travel time; although the effects were smaller in a subsequent experiment involving a smaller number of experienced truck drivers. Design guidelines have been developed for haul-truck proximity advisory systems. Further work is underway in project C27005 in which a similar experimental paradigm is utilized to examine two of the issues identified as requiring further investigation: the relative benefits of proximity information based on distance only vs collision prediction information; and secondly, the relative benefits of auditory tones vs speech.

Simon Burnett – Development Mechanical Coordinator, Anglo American Steven Henderson – Development Mechanical Trade Supervisor, Anglo American

Prof Ismet Canbulat – Professor and Chair of Rock Mechanics, The University of New South Wales

ABSTRACT

There is an increasing trend to use multimedia visuals as tools in training to enhance learning process, which help to better present the concepts and contents. In 2017 ACARP initiated a project to develop new advanced videos to update the geotechnical awareness and training video (i.e., Black Gold) for open cut coal mines utilising the latest technology in animation and visualisation. The benefits of these videos are: • They are powerful as they empower employees and improve productivity and safety • They are cost-effective; when developed, they can be used by all operations and mines • They save time in training, providing more learning in less time • They can be deployed quickly and efficiently • They offer a consistent experience • They are flexible (i.e., deploy, stop, rewind, forward etc) • They give more time to geotechnical engineers to fulfil their other day-to-day duties Two distinct modulus, one for the operators and supervisors and the other one for the technical service teams, have been developed in the project. These videos focus on the following aspects: 1. Operational hazard identification and control 2. Mining practices and associated impact on geotechnical aspects 3. Geotechnical processes and systems 4. Role of geotechnical engineers 5. Equipment capabilities This presentation summarises the development of Geotechnical Hazard Awareness and Training Videos for the open cut coal mining industry.