As published in Business Day Safety supplement 28 April 2021.
In May 2016, Kumba’s chief executive Themba Mkhwanazi made a bold declaration: not one more person would die while working for the company. Themba was responding to a fatal incident which claimed the life of a colleague at the company’s Sishen Mine that week. It was certainly a big commitment, considering the nature and complexity of Kumba’s operations, and the intricacies that come with making mining operations safer.
But since embedding a company-wide focus on becoming injury and fatality free and taking a holistic approach to health and safety at its operations, Kumba has been without a fatal incident since May 2016. In the same time, we have seen a 67% reduction in serious incidents and injuries across all our operations, and in 2020, we achieved our lowest rate of total recordable incidents in five years, despite the additional demands of Covid-19.
What did the company do to achieve this and how did it get here? For a start, it changed its focus 180 degrees from accident prevention to fatality elimination. Most mines focus on preventing accidents to prevent fatalities. In reality, fatality prevention and accident prevention are two different issues, as the circumstances that cause fatalities are generally very different to those that cause accidents.
Kumba’s ongoing journey to becoming an injury and fatality free organisation is built on a comprehensive six-point approach that we believe can guide the entire mining industry to reduce, and even eliminate, fatalities.
1) Safety starts at the top
Leaders must change their mindsets around safety and understand that whatever happens on their watch is a reflection of their leadership.
2) Instil a company-wide culture of safety
Until the mining industry gets safety embedded into the hearts and minds of its people, it will never be a fatality free business. Creating a culture of safety at mines takes time and significant leadership commitment to establish. Themba likes to say safety is like sweeping water uphill: if you stop sweeping for a moment, it comes flowing back!
To eliminate fatalities, visible felt leadership is important to encourage leaders to be in the field where the work of greatest risk is done. When workers see this, it confirms for them how seriously safety is taken, and results in them following procedures more correctly. This has had a major impact on Kumba’s accident rates.
3) Put the right processes in place
It is vital to implement a well-designed risk and change management process that identifies the critical controls of fatal risks. Using benchmark figures, a typical opencast operation has over 800 controls to prevent accidents. About 80 of these are critical controls, which can result in a fatal accident if they fail. If a mine can ensure 100% compliance, 100% of the time, then it will eliminate fatal accidents.
4) Learn from incidents
Mines must become learning organisations. The industry must learn properly from its own experiences, both across the broader South African industry and from the rest of the world. Every high-potential hazard and incident has to be treated as if it was a fatal accident, with the same rigour and investigation processes.
5) Plan and schedule fanatically
The way to manage fatal risks is to make sure that when high-risk activities are performed, they are planned and scheduled down to the very last detail. Unplanned work is unsafe work. To ensure compliance to the planned work – the “high risk work” verification process delivers on the oversight required to ensure that the correct processes are in place to perform the high risk work safely.
6) Use technology to separate people from harm
In the past few years, the industry has seen major leaps in the technology available to automate risky processes and reduce human exposure to harsh conditions and risks. Some of the technology Kumba is deploying includes:
- Auto braking on haul trucks. These trucks are two stories high, and fully loaded weigh 600 tonnes. Driver visibility is limited. Auto braking Technology can take over and stop the truck in its tracks if there is the risk of a collision with other vehicles and structures.
- Auto drilling, where drill operators operate remotely in air-conditioned rooms away from dust and noise. This has had a significant effect on the health and general wellbeing of the operators.
- Remote dozers, where workers operate machinery remotely, away from risk areas such as steep slopes and inclines.
- Drone technology, which assists in the blast clearances, survey technology and general structure integrity observations.
Fatalities do not have to be, and must not be, an inevitable by-product of mining. If the industry can work one day with no injuries and no fatalities, then it can do two, four, 100 and more. As miners, we know the fatal risks facing us, and we need to manage them properly. This is what it means for us to re-imagine mining to improve people’s lives.
“At Kumba Iron Ore, we truly believe that becoming injury and fatality free is achievable, though it is an ongoing process. Ultimately,the industry cannot rest until 100% compliance is achieved. We are certainly never resting at Kumba,” Philip Fourie, outgoing Executive Head of Safety and Sustainable Development at Kumba Iron Ore, part of the Anglo American group.