Electricity and Control January 2023

SAFETY OF PLANT, EQUIPMENT + PEOPLE

A single standard safety induction model for mining Jared Kangisser, CEO of KBC Health & Safety, suggests that a standard safety induction procedure could deliver significant savings in annual onboarding costs for mining houses.

M ining is one of the most dangerous industries in the world, so it is for good reason that there are strict health and safety protocols in the industry. Before starting work on any project for a mining company, any individual has to complete the required health and safety induction at each mining site. Given the high headcount for many contractors at any given site, this can become complicated, costly, and time-consuming. The requirement that the induction process be repeated for each returning individual – often across multiple sites on numerous occasions throughout the mine’s lifecycle – becomes impractical. A single standard induction model that supports inter-company and intra-company movements and eliminates induction duplication can provide a solution – avoiding wasted time and recurring induction costs. Repetitive procedures raise costs Although the rationalebehind themining site safety induction requirement is sound in theory, in practice the process could be more efficient. As well as the Occupational Health and Safety Act, Section 10 of the Mine Health and Safety Act regulates all mining activities and places a requirement on the employer to train an individual on the latest health and safety standards that apply to the respective mining site. At each site the HSE team is empowered to run its own induction processes, as long as it ensures that it covers the correct health and safety training elements of the relevant legislative acts to be legally compliant. This includes elements of hazard identification and risk assessment on site and how each individual is to perform their job safely in that environment. Having to repeat this induction on arrival and return at every site takes a lot of time, resources, and money. Unnecessary costs and delays With each mine running its own induction programme, which can take between one and three days, it is hard to maintain efficiency when onboarding high numbers of workers and this causes bottlenecks. Internal induction resources are stretched thin – classroom, administrator and facilitator resources are limited, lead times get pushed out and in turn extend the time taken for workers to get onto site. There are direct and indirect cost implications for the mining house, but because these are not visible as a single line item on an income statement, mining companies don’t always see the real cost impact of these delays. However, if, for example, a mining house takes on 2 000 contractors a year and it takes each contractor an extra two days to get onto

site (at an assumed R1 000 per day cost per contractor) that amounts to an extra R4 million per year in safety training expenses due to bottlenecks and inefficiency.

Jared Kangisser, CEO of KBC Health & Safety.

Standardisation offers a solution 80% of the safety induction procedure is generic – to meet the legal requirements of the acts. This makes it ripe for standardisation. In the early 2000s, a unified induction and training centre was established in KwaZulu-Natal, involving six different mining houses. Across these six mining houses, about 10 000 mining contractors migrated between five or six mines for several years and, before standardisation, contractors would need to redo the induction each time they arrived and returned to a site. By standardising the legally required content of the safety induction procedure into a world class induction programme, the mining houses made it possible for contractors to undergo a single induction and, on passing the assessment, they were issued with clearance valid for 12 months. This served for both inter-company and intra-company movement, and contractors would not be required to repeat the induction to access any of the sites that are party to the single standard induction model. Any other on-site and site-specific induction requirements are then significantly simplified and reduced, and efficiency

As well as improving efficiencies, a single standard safety induction procedure in mining would support the principle of achieving zero harm.

JANUARY 2023 Electricity + Control

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