Critical Controls in Mining: How Do You Stay Compliant?

The mining industry faces significant challenges in ensuring safety and compliance. With the recent introduction of Queensland’s Resources Safety and Health Legislation Amendment Act 2024

So how do you meet the requirements, stay compliant and keep your people safe? One key component that I’ll be discussing in this article is Critical Control Management—a barrier between high-risk processes and devastating outcomes.

Let's look at the role of critical controls in mining, and how you can streamline this process.

What are critical controls in mining?

Critical controls are specific measures implemented to prevent, mitigate, or control risks associated with high-consequence events. These events, if not managed properly, can lead to severe injuries, fatalities, or significant environmental impacts and are sometimes referred to as Material Unwanted Events (MUEs) or Priority Unwanted Events (PUEs). Critical controls are the backbone of risk management in mining operations, keeping the most significant hazards under control.

Some examples of typical critical controls in mining operations include:

• Ground control: Measures to prevent rockfalls and ground collapses. Such as regular geotechnical assessments, installing ground support systems (like bolts and mesh), and monitoring ground movement with sensors.
• Explosive handling: Stringent procedures for the storage, handling, and use of explosives. For example, the use of blast mats to contain flyrock and detailed blast design to control vibration and overpressure.
• Ventilation management: Ensuring adequate ventilation to control exposure to harmful gases and dust. This includes installing high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters and using ventilation modelling software to optimise airflow in underground mines.
• Vehicle and traffic management: Implementing traffic control plans to prevent collisions between vehicles and pedestrians. This includes designated travel routes, vehicle separation barriers, and the use of proximity detection systems.
• Chemical management: Proper storage, handling, and disposal of hazardous chemicals to prevent spills and exposure. Such as spill containment systems, regular inspections, and training workers in chemical safety.

The importance of critical control management

Critical control management directly addresses the highest-risk hazards. It ensures they are identified, monitored, and mitigated effectively. These controls are managed with a tailored checklist for each organisation.

Beyond complying with regulations, they promote a safer work environment, protecting both workers and the surrounding community. In an industry where the stakes are high, effective critical control management is essential for preventing catastrophic incidents and maintaining operational integrity. Minimising or eliminating critical incidents also has a direct effect on the bottom line, making investment in an effective system financially logical too. 

Now, with the changes to legislation in Queensland, eyes are on mining operations to have bulletproof critical control checklists and regular audits.

Streamlining critical control management with a digital Bow-Tie

Tracking all of your critical controls isn't easy. Understanding their relationships with each other, finding at-risk controls and creating compliance-fit reports is a lot harder. It's tedious, time-consuming, and worst of all, incredibly easy to get wrong.

That's where a Bow-Tie diagram comes into play.

A bow-tie diagram serves as a visual representation of intricate layers of critical control management. You may even have created one before. However, it's traditionally been used a static planning tool. It tells you how things should interlink but, in reality, requires regular review, updating and management.

A more effective implementation of this technique is to make it live and interactive. At myosh, this idea led to the invention of what we now call the Digital Bow-Tie.

At the core,  digital bow-tie looks like a traditional bow-tie model:

• hazard or unwanted event is in the centre,
• preventive controls on one side, linked to causes/threats
• and mitigative controls on the other side, linked to consequences

But it's a lot more powerful, as it remains connected to real-time data sources. Let's dive into how it changes the game.

Centralised management of safety data and critical controls

A digital bow-tie allows for the centralised management of all safety data and controls. It summarises and presents all critical information in one place, easily accessible for analysis and review. This enhances the efficiency of data management, reduces redundancy, and ensures consistency in safety protocols across the organisation.

Coherent and rapid setup

Data doesn’t just flow into a digital bow-tie, it goes both ways. Specifically, a digital bow-tie allows you to build all the electronic records required to manage your critical control from a graphical template. It lets you get the team in front of a big screen and build your live structure in real time.

Real-time monitoring and reporting

Digital solutions provide real-time monitoring and reporting capabilities, allowing for immediate identification of potential issues. If any critical controls are at risk of failing, your system should alert you to react before the hazard materialises.

Automated compliance tracking and documentation

With the complexity of modern industrial operations, it is virtually essential to esteblish automated systems that streamline compliance tracking and documentation.This is crucial for reducing the administrative burden on safety managers and allows teams to remain small. 

When complexity scales, simply adding more staff is rarely effective. An integrated record-tracking system ensures that all necessary documentation is up-to-date and readily available for audits or inspections. Your team does their regular audit on the ground, and the system should take care of the rest.

Enhanced risk management and mitigation using data feedback

The comprehensive data analysis capabilities of a digital bow-tie, as used in myosh, mean significantly better risk management. It enables more accurate identification of risks and the implementation of effective mitigation measures. 

What does this mean in real terms? Taking your strategy digital and integrating your records means that coherent data collection becomes possible. This takes away much of the pain of manually unifying information required to provide in-context information.

Implementing critical controls in mining operations

1. Conduct a thorough risk assessment

Identify all potential hazards associated with PUEs in your mining operations, and articulate the causes and consequences of each. This involves evaluating the likelihood (looking at the causes) and potential impact (looking at the consequences) of each hazard to prioritise the most significant risks. This forms the centre of each of your bow-tie models.

2. Develop a critical control checklist

Create a detailed checklist that outlines all necessary controls, their implementation steps, and monitoring requirements. At this point, also ensure you identify your critical controls - those that must not fail - in order to efficiently focus your resources and efforts.

3. Implement digital solutions

A comprehensive critical control management tool can help automate and streamline the process of implementing critical controls. By complementing it with the Digital Bow-Tie model, you can visualise the relationship between hazards and controls, get real-time updates, centralise data management, and automate reports.

4. Train staff

Ensure that all employees are trained on the new systems and understand their roles in maintaining critical controls. Training should cover the use of digital tools, the importance of each control, and procedures for monitoring and reporting.

5. Continuous monitoring and improvement

Regularly review and update critical controls based on real-time data and feedback from safety audits. Continuous monitoring allows for the identification of potential issues before they escalate, ensuring ongoing compliance and safety. Use the data gathered to refine and improve your risk management strategies, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Implementing critical controls and creating a digital Bow-Tie model can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your safety management system. Ensure your mining operations are well-equipped, promote a safer work environment and maintain regulatory compliance.

While this is the last step, it is certainly not the least. Operating without a tight feedback loop is like driving blind.

Ready to take action on better critical controls?

Critical controls are fundamental to ensuring safety in mining operations. Implementing advanced safety management software can significantly streamline the process of identifying, implementing, and monitoring these critical controls.

It's not just about compliance; it's about protecting your workforce and ensuring the smooth operation of your mining activities. myosh provides tailored solutions that simplify the management of critical controls, making it easier for you to stay compliant and safe.

To enhance your safety protocols and ensure compliance, explore myosh's digital suite today.

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