Page 39 - Advances In Productive, Safe, and Responsible Coal Mining

Safety and productivity in coal mining—How to make both the top priority 25

ventilation control procedures, checklists for job procedures, formal on-the-job
training handouts, etc. were all generated without the use of computers. Later, of
course, computers helped reduce the amount of time for creating, changing, updating,
and using such tools.
As time progressed, and when particular stress on compliance was generated by
mine disasters or high fatality counts for a year, more computer-based tools and
broader tools for accountability of compliance became useful. Risk assessment and
management became popular, as did national and internal codes of practice and safety
management systems and handbooks.
The keys, however, to excellent compliance with regulations, low injury rates, and
minimization of risk are dedication of management to achieving progressive and real-
istic goals; a well-informed, trained, and dedicated workforce; observations and
inspections to check on excellent performance; continuous feedback on achievement
of goals (personally and organizationally); and revision of goals as achievements pro-
gress. The type of loop process applies to each person’s job accomplishment, includ-
ing management and supervision. The International Labour Organization’s Code of
Practice on Safety and Health in Underground Coalmines [20], the New South Wales
Mine Safety’s Safety Management Systems in Mines [21], and the US National Min-
ing Association’s CORESafety [22] provide guideline documents on pursuing such
strategies for achieving safety excellence. Many other similar systems exist, and gen-
erally speaking, any one will suffice with good application. The “devil” is in the
details and being able to gain total organizational support, at all levels, to pursue
the system faithfully is imperative.
Achieving excellence in safety also hinges on the creation and adoption of new
technology, which has occurred throughout coal-mining history. Much of the new
technology in the 1920s through the 1950s addressed production (e.g., drilling
machines, loading machines, mobile haulage conveyances, roof bolting machines,
and continuous mining machines). However, significant developments were also
achieved in making mines safer through scientific research by the Bureau of Mines.
Some examples include making coal dust inert (from explosions) through rock
dusting, methane control methods, making explosives permissible (unable to detonate
methane in an explosive concentration), roof bolting hardware, etc. From the 1960s to
1980s, more robust, productive, and safe longwall mining equipment was developed,
along with respiratory protection that removed 80% of the coal dust in the miner’s
breathing zone via a helmet with forced fresh air. More recently, the progeny agency
of the Bureau of Mines, the Office of Mine Safety and Health Research in the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), supported and/or developed
continuous respirable dust monitoring equipment, a rock dust meter that can estimate
reasonably accurate inert content in mine dust, wireless communication and tracking
technology, proximity detectors for mobile mining machinery, and more.
However, adoption of the technology, as it becomes available, is the critical factor
in improving mine safety and health. Decisions by operators to adopt productivity
improving machinery are easy to make, but decisions to adopt readily new technology
to improve safety and health are often not made. Sometimes, legislation or rulemaking
that drives the adoption of new safety and health technology forces it into the industry.