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.

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 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.

David Chatto – Head of REMSAFE

ABSTRACT

Isolation of machinery is an everyday occurrence on mine sites, and practices have improved considerably over time. This presentation will explore some of the key advances in isolation practices over many decades. Up-to-date isolation-related incident data from Queensland will be presented and examined. It will be suggested that improvement has at best plateaued and that a shift is required in our approach to isolation practices – in particular: a focus on higher-order controls. Human factors will be identified as the leading ongoing cause of isolation-related incidents. Highly effective, currently available treatment options will be discussed. In particular, autonomous isolation (often called ‘remote isolation’), will be put forward as a key method of driving step-change improvement in this area. Using James Reason’s model of human error (slips, lapses, mistakes and violations), it will be shown that autonomous isolation is highly effective in treating all forms of human error. Case studies will be presented to demonstrate the benefits of autonomous isolation and a recent technical advancement will be introduced to demonstrate the continuing evolution of isolation.

Chair: Greg Dalliston – Industry Safety & Health Representative, CFMEU Mining and Energy Division Queensland Region This is your opportunity to influence the standard of supervision in our industry. Over the last few years, the industry has had a number of serious and fatal accidents where effective supervision has been raised as a contributing factor. This session will include a brief introduction to the reasons why the review into the three units of competency (Risk Management, Accident Investigation and Communications) is being undertaken, with Industry, Department and Unions represented. It will then be open to give attendees a chance to have input into a review of what skills and competencies the industry sees as being required to assist persons appointed as supervisors to ensure that the work under their care is conducted to an acceptable level of risk, their responsibilities and obligations to the workers being supervised and that safety and health related information is passed on to those continuing with that work at the mine. The session will conclude with a summary of the issues raised which will be fed back into the Project Committee through the IRC, SSO and PWC.

Kristie Davies – Occupational Hygienist, Anglo American

ABSTRACT

A number of different products that are used for ground consolidation works in the mining industry contain polymeric chemicals, predominantly isocyanates, phenols and formaldehydes. Exposures to these chemicals have potential to cause occupational asthma, skin and eye irritation and some are classified as a Category 2 carcinogen. Air monitoring can be conducted to determine inhalation risk; however this has its limitations due to available methodologies for sampling including the capacity to capture all isomers of chemicals in those products used. Health effects from polymeric chemicals can also occur through skin contact. To assist in determining potential worker exposure and total body burden, Grosvenor Mine implemented an extensive urine sampling and analysis program as this will demonstrate exposure from both inhalation and skin contact. Start of tour, Pre and Post urine sampling was implemented. The team at Grosvenor Mine and the Contracting Company worked together to implement engineering and administrative controls to minimize worker exposure to polymeric chemicals. An enclosed product delivery process was developed, trialed and implemented on site. This project is not yet finalized; however results from urine sampling and analysis have shown a reduction in worker exposures. Also during this process we have been working closely with the laboratory performing analysis and have provided this project information to the Polymeric Chemicals RS Sub -committee.

Philippa Dodshon – PhD Student and Researcher, Sustainable Minerals Institute

ABSTRACT

Serious incidents continue to occur in high risk industries such as mining. Irrespective of work undertaken the majority of incidents seem to be repeats of previous similar incidents. The ICMM reported the main reasons we are continuing to see fatalities, serious injuries, and high potential incidents is due to risks not being properly identified, controls not being put into place, or controls not being effectively implemented or maintained. The ICMM developed a critical control risk management (CCRM) program that focuses on identifying and managing those controls critical to preventing catastrophic and fatal events. Many companies in the mining industry are currently implementing this process. An important aspect of any risk management program is investigating and learning from events in order to improve the control of hazards. However incorporating or embedding the CCRM approach is not explored or explained in the ICMM guideline documents. This presentation describes an investigation process that enables practitioners to identify ways organisations can further enhance the effectiveness of their risk controls. It specifically enhances an organisations ability to assess the effectiveness of human (the acts) and organisational (the systems) risk controls after an incident occurs. It will also discuss findings from pilot case studies done with several mining companies and sponsored by the MCA.