Method of Organizing and Controlling the Safety of Production Processes at a Coal Mine

Context: Why Traditional Control is Not Enough

In open-pit mining conditions, especially when expanding the staff and hiring new employees, standard methods of checking qualifications are often insufficient. The speaker analyzes a situation at a coal mine where, after the closure of a shaft and mass retraining of personnel as mining dump truck drivers, there was an increase in negative events: collisions, run-overs, and equipment damage. It became obvious that the formal possession of a certificate does not reflect a person's real attitude towards safety. A need arose for a tool that would allow assessing the reliability of workers directly in the production environment and managing risks before the start of a shift.

Categorization Methodology: How to Assess Personnel Reliability

The presentation details an approach to personnel assessment developed jointly with a specialized research institute. The assessment is conducted by a commission based on four key criteria, each scored from 1 to 4 points:

• Informing: the employee's readiness to report incident precursors timely and honestly. This is important for a preventive response to threats.
• Qualification: the ability not just to know the rules, but to consciously apply them in practice without constant coercion.
• Attitude to safety: perceiving safe work as an internal need, rather than an imposed duty.
• Team relations: focus on cooperation and consideration of colleagues' interests when performing tasks.

Based on the assessment results, the employee is assigned a category (from "green" to "red"). Colored tags on workwear are used for visualization, allowing foremen and colleagues to instantly assess the reliability level of the crew and distribute tasks competently.

Automation of the Work Order System: Preventing Dangerous Combinations

Using the Unified Safety Book (USB) as an example, the speaker shows how categorization results are integrated into the daily production process. In addition to personnel, the production processes themselves are subject to assessment (by the level of standardization, the presence of large-scale equipment, etc.).

The key mechanism of the system is blocking the issuance of a work order in case of an unacceptable combination of employee and process categories. If an inexperienced or unreliable employee ("red" category) is assigned to perform high-risk work, the program requires the manager to either implement additional compensating measures or cancel the task. Such an algorithm eliminates the human factor when planning a shift and directly affects the reduction of accident rates.

Dynamics and Motivation: How Safety Culture Changes

Implementing the system took time to overcome team resistance, but the results were revealing. Incident analysis confirmed a direct correlation: employees with a low safety rating naturally became participants in accidents. The pre-shift electronic testing system allows employees to dynamically improve their category, and the annual review of assessments and risk-oriented training for "laggards" stimulate a conscious attitude to work. Financial motivation is built on depriving bonuses for being in a high-risk zone, making compliance with rules economically viable for everyone.

What you will learn from this webinar:

• How to develop objective criteria for assessing employees' attitudes towards safety?
• How does visualizing an employee's rating help in managing a crew?
• How to automate the issuance of work orders to prevent unreliable personnel from accessing dangerous work?
• How to overcome team negativity when implementing a personal categorization system?
• How to link pre-shift testing results with dynamic changes in an employee's rating?