Risk and Safety Management

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2009:

144 hours (including non-contact time).

2 X 1 hour lectures weekly.
1 X 1 hour practical weekly.

This course examines the fundamentals of risk and safety management, risk management concepts such as losses, hazards & risks, controls/barriers, risk analysis & assessment techniques. It also examines risk management systems, auditing & incident investigation tools and case studies.

Course topics will include;

• Safety management in Mining (Underground and open pit);
• Hazard identification, hazard and risk analyses, management techniques, safety audits and reporting;
• HAZOP (Hazard and Operability) management and maintenance of change risk analysis;
• Mining personnel approach to mine safety;
• Safety training for mine personnel ;
• Incident/Accident and injury investigation methods (ICAM) and report/recovery;
• Cost benefit analysis for decision making process;
• Ergonomics and safety engineering;
• Prevention of injury eg Loss time injury;
• Work stress;
• Environmental impacts;
• Monitoring and protection;
• Personal protective equipment;
• State and federal Mining legislations; comparison of Australian and international mining legislations;
• Safety policies and programs and action plans;
• Safety statistics to date;
• Case studies.

A formal loss control program is closely related to risk management within mining operations and will be reviewed together with identification of management strategies to deal with such losses and reduce the likelihood of accidents and their severities. It will look at simple hazard control management to a large scale management planning. This course will draw on experience, techniques and standards applied in other industries and case studies.

On completion of this subject, the students should have developed the skills and knowledge for risk identification, risk analysis, risk reduction or elimination and to apply them to practical mining environment to minimise the likelihood of accidents. Specifically, they should have a solid understanding of all the risk management functions including:

• Risk identification;
• Risk analysis;
• Risk reduction or elimination;
• Risk financing;
• Process administration.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

On completion of this subject, the students should have developed:

• analytical, critical and creative thinking, with an aptitude for continued self-directed learning.
• sense of intellectual curiosity.
• ability to interpret data and research results.
• sense of intellectual integrity and ethics of scholarship.
• writing, problem-solving and communication skills.
• ability to learn in a range of ways, including through information and communication technologies.
• capacity to confront unfamiliar problems.
• ability to develop models of practical applications and evaluate their performance by rigorous analytical means and by programming computer simulations.
• ability to evaluate and synthesise the research and professional literature.
• capacity to manage competing demands on time, including self-directed project work.
• Skills for hazard/ risk identification especially in planning stages (Proactive). This is essential for continuous improvement.
• Skills to analyse understand and interpret the risk. This will help management prioritize areas that should be targets for greatest improvement.
• Skills to evaluate the risk and determine which potential losses and events will be addressed and in what order of priority.
• Problem-solving and communication skills.
• Risk investigation and reporting skills.
• Risk management and safety audit skills.