Shaun Dobson, Deputy Chief Inspector of Coal Mines, Resources Safety and Health Queensland
Greg Glennon – Operations Manager, Otraco International Pty Ltd
ABSTRACT
Tyres are pressure vessels, potentially containing several hundred tonnes of force, and they are continuously exposed to operational damage. The risk of a fatality during a tyre maintenance activity on an Australian mine site is in the order of ten times higher than that for a non-tyre related vehicle maintenance event.
In 2015/2016, Otraco International performed an extensive review of tyre maintenance related fatalities and life threatening injuries in the mining industry worldwide, their causes and the controls that need to be implemented to eliminate them. The review was used as the foundation for the Otraco Critical Control Program (CCP), an integral part of our Risk Management process and has since been implemented across our Australian and international projects. Our CCP is supported by tyre related bowtie risk reviews which assisted with the identification of critical controls and mapped the level of interface with other operational and safety programs to build resilience.
Otraco has learned that there is no “silver bullet’ for managing critical risks, they require total integration of safety, quality and operational roles, empowering workers to be part of the solution. Through ‘ground up’ solutions development supported, promoted and made visible by all levels of management, our controls that are seen as practical and are applied every day.
Keith Haley – General Manager, Saraji Mine, BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance
ABSTRACT
Are some people born to take more risk and others born to play it safe? Does a race car driver have a different genetic makeup from a librarian? Do miners in general have a different brain and risk tolerance from the population as a whole?
Induction into the mining industry requires companies teach workers about Risk. In fact, the entire act is devoted to understanding and managing risk, “Shall not expose coal mine workers to an unacceptable level of risk.” Typically, teaching risk assessment during induction is a very academic exercise. Risk assessment training is presented from the textbook perspective and explains probability and consequence of an event. The general population does not understand the academic side of risk assessment and they do not use “safety terms” to talk about risk. Companies use induction training to start teaching the safety hierarchy of controls to mitigate risk. These are great concepts, but for most workers they are new words and terms. This education is important; it gives the industry a common language and allows us all to communicate and understand risk better.
This presentation is the precursor to the intellectual process described above. This presentation helps others understand what needs to be unlearned. When teaching co-workers about risk, understanding what they already know is critical. Induction training should consider helping people unlearn what they think is innate. This presentation will demonstrate one perspective on where risk acceptance develops, how deeply entrenched risk tolerance is in each of us, and where and why risk-taking habits form.
Anthony Masciangioli – Director and Principal Consultant
Darren Head, Principal Consultant, Riskcom Pty Ltd
ABSTRACT
Risk can often be seen as a disparate set of problems that seem to be unrelated and can result in Boards, Executives and Senior Managers being overwhelmed and exposed as the business struggles to address its issues across many competing priorities.
So how do we manage this? We must first identify and understand the critical risks the business is exposed to. The concept of risk lends itself to the Pareto principle, that is; 80% of a business’ risk profile is related to 20% of its risks (i.e. the critical few). Given this, it is appropriate for a business to focus on the ‘critical few’ rather than the ‘trivial many’ and to drill down deep into the causal pathway of the ‘critical few’. The aim of this is to ensure that effective controls are available to be implemented when required.
We must then understand the organisation’s (including the Boards, Executives and Senior Managers) appetite for managing these ‘critical few’ risks. The appetite for managing these ‘critical few’ risks is a function of the organisation’s culture and we must understand what motivates (or demotivates) the Board, Executive, Senior Managers and employees to implement (or not) the relevant management system requirements including activation of the critical controls when required.
When we truly understand what motivates people to manage the ‘critical few’ risks and we hold people accountable for the availability and effectiveness of the controls, then and only then will we have a culture that will enable a business to mitigate/manage its risk profile and optimise its business performance.
In this session, we will reflect on several case studies to support these contentions and provide evidence of this approach.
Deanna McMaster, Partner and
Rhian O’Sullivan, Special Counsel, MinterEllison
Dr Ben Seligmann, Research Fellow – Risk Management, Sustainable Minerals Institute, University of Queensland