Can We Do Anything About Dangers in the Mining Industry?
All my life, I’ve heard of scary, tragic mining accidents. Yet, they still happen today. Thousands of miners die each year from mining accidents.
We’ve heard the news of a horrific mining accident. An explosion. A cave-in. Leaks of poisonous gases. Collapses of mine stopes. Flooding. Incalculable losses of life due to mining.
We’ve watched intently on television as workers have been trapped as rescue events unfold. Mining tragedies have unfolded all over the world. What can be done to mitigate or prevent mining accidents?
Mining is an industry where there are so many hazards (underground mining conditions, flammable gases, hazardous chemicals, flooding, and more). I read last week where a mining fatality occurred recently only a few miles from where I live.
Could these tragic mining incidents have been avoided?
It’s the question we all wonder when we hear about the sad ending to someone’s life when all they did that day was go to work. Were there minor issues that could have been fixed that would have prevented the tragedy? It is not uncommon for that to have been the case.
Very often minor incidents may have been investigated, but did they stop too soon in their investigation before getting to the true root causes?
Did they simply assume they knew what happened and put a corrective action in place thinking they had completely resolved the problem?
Were all the causal factors identified and root causes of those causal factors found and corrected?
For TapRooT® RCA, that is our goal: Stopping major incidents before they occur
You may call it “being proactive.” “Precursors” is the term we use.
Here are a couple of articles you may want to peruse to learn more about precursors.
- What is a Precursor Incident?
- Precursor Incidents – Why the TapRooT® Folks Want You to Sweat the Small Stuff
Here are examples of how addressing precursors completely changes what could be a bad or fatal outcome:
- Finding and fixing issues before they contribute to tragedies
- Stopping repeat incidents
- Removing biases and guiding investigators to getting to the real root causes
- Getting the right systems in place that will keep workers safe, stop downtime, and help reduce the costs that occur when these things happen
It’s an all-around good thing for everyone (on your team) involved to do their best to stop these negative incidents from happening
If you would like to know more about how TapRooT® Root Cause Analysis can help your company, contact me and I will be happy to demonstrate how TapRooT® can help you get to the real root causes and fix precursor incidents before they turn into a tragic event. We have public and virtual courses going on all over the world.
We can also come on-site (contact us) and teach your team how to stop incidents to create a safer work environment for all.
