Production and technical risk assessment and management strategy in the mining industry

Abstract

Early identification of production accident risks is a key factor in both the enhancement of production management efficiency and the improvement of supervision and control quality. As practice shows, when only statistical approaches are used to estimate production and technical risks in mines, the probability of incidents and hazardous occurrences is often underestimated because of lack of statistical data. It is highly effective to assess the production and technical risks in the mining industry using a standard risk measure. This article describes the risk engineering approaches to the expert appraisal of risks. These approaches enhance efficiency of identification of accident risks connected with geotechnical conditions of mining operations with due regard to the production specifics. The methods of check-listing for the real-time assessment of failure risks in mines based on scoring models which describe failure mechanisms are discussed. The features of introduction of the proposed production and technical risk assessment and management at mining companies are described. This production and technical risk assessment and management strategy for the mining industry:– enhances the risk probability estimate reliability owing to quantitative evaluation using key risk indicators;– increases the efficiency of scoring systems due to the mathematical modeling included in checklisting;– improves the risk response promptness thanks to the unified risk visualization environment;– essentially reduces time consumption in the risk management and managerial decision-making at high beneficial effect on the objects in view.