Adrian Clarke
SHE Manager, Anglo American
A proactive safety culture is the desired end state for Anglo American’s Dawson Mine. The journey relies upon the initiation of a strong system to promote embedding the desired safety behaviours within the organisation.
At Dawson Mine, this system is “Recognition and Reward Scheme”. The scheme relies on hazard reporting and innovation drives, aligning with the core values of Safety and Innovation. Hazard reporting and associated rectification is critical to improve safety ownership. Prior to implementation, 60% of hazards were reported by the general workforce. This has now increased to 90%, with a total increase in hazard reporting of 20%. The success of the scheme can be attributed to two main factors; firstly, an easy to use system, responsive to feedback, and secondly an immediate reward implication, with those crews achieving high rates of genuine hazard notification receiving recognition.
The second success of the scheme is the increase in innovation from the workforce. Innovations are submitted to the site’s Safety, Health and Environment Committee with nominees and award recipients celebrated quarterly across the site.
The “Recognition and Reward Scheme” develops a culture of intervention and ‘speaking up’, encouraging employees not to be a bystander but be fully involved in behavioural safety.
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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.