Abstract

Background

The global mining industry has been struggling to reduce the number of workplace fatalities and North America is faced with the same struggle. This challenge supports the need to make a step change improvement. Many years of focusing on Total Recordable Injury rate has not reduced the number of fatalities. Since then, there has been a greater emphasis in Serious Injury and Fatality prevention, however, these efforts have not had an impact on the number of fatalities in the Mining Industry. Why is this?

dss+, formerly DuPont Sustainable Solutions, is leading the Mining Industry Serious Injury & Fatality (SIF) Study Group to share learnings and help accelerate the progress of SIF prevention in the Mining Industry. There are eight companies who are participating in the Mining Industry SIF Study Group. Through a series of face-to-face meetings and virtual discussions, the Group is sharing their learnings and challenges as they work to reduce SIFs. The SIF Study Group members, including Vale, Lundin Mining, Teck Resources, Suncor, Trafigura, Nevada Gold Mines, Finning and dss+ are ready to provide an update on the SIF Study Group’s progress since we lasted presented at the 2023 CIM Conference in Montreal.  

Progress in 2023-2024

Since that time, the Study Group has completed, (or is in the process of completing) four sets of deliverables which include:

1. Three Critical SIF Field Verification Checklist:
   1. Haul Trucks
   2. High-Wall Collapse
   3. Fall of Ground/Rock Fall
2. Advancing the Science in four of the eight ICMM Lessons Learned including:
   1. 0 Fatality Mindset
   2. Safety Leadership at all levels
   3. Risk Management Capability
   4. Critical Controls
3. Operational Best Practices for:
   1. Contractor Safety Management
   2. Incident Investigations and CAPAs
4. SIF Actual and Potential Leading and Lagging Indicators

The Mining SIF Study Group would like to provide the conference with an update on this effort and include an interactive discussion on recommendations for distributing these deliverables to the Mining Industry for field use.

Michael Hajaistron