Mathew Haddrick
Site Safety and Health Representative
Brent McKay
BMA Saraji Mine
The mining industry has historically managed fatigue in an ad hoc fashion. A majority of leaders simply told their employees to “toughen up and deal with it” this is all part of the job. The slightly better leaders would encourage their employees to focus on sleep and preparing for work when they were away from the job. Most employees accepted that they were paid well and “being tired is simply part of the job and why they get the big bucks”.
This presentation will focus on the journey Saraji mine travelled to develop our current fatigue culture, procedures and education materials. Currently the site has a solid process, a good education program, and strong tools for managing fatigue. The current culture has improved but it is a long journey and many employees still haven’t embraced the fatigue policy fully.
The journey was initiated by the site SSHR, through bipartisan support of Management, incorporating key work force participation. Site was able to learn and understand that our miners were struggling throughout the shift and were exposing themselves and other road user to an increased risk of a fatigue related accident. This presentation will share some details on the journey Saraji has embarked on to achieve a common objective of reducing fatigue related events.
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- Post explosion atmosphere monitoring:– An industry study into available, low powered, sensors were conducted. The study was to identify commercially available equipment to sample the mine atmosphere post an underground incident.
- Ultra-resilient communication system:– An investigation was undertaken into the feasibility of components for a robust and resilient mine communication network. The network must survive an underground incident and be able to transmit information in and out of an underground mine environment.
- Blast protection (or blast resilience):– The blast protection was evaluated through subjecting different shapes of enclosures to actual blasts, in an explosion propagation tube.
- Navigational aids:– A series of test were undertaken to determine the suitability of using visible light, infra-red as well as radar to aid in self rescue. All test were undertaken in a “dusty”, or low-visibility, environment.