Safety Standards at Western Mining

Question: Discuss about the Safety Standards at Western Mining. Answer: Introduction: Of the many high risk business mining can be considered as one of the most hazardous work field even though several systems for safety are in place. The work is specifically difficult for labor working onsite and hence all the mining companies have strict safety measures in place. Yet, time to time grievous incidents occur as a result of a slip in the safety standards. Western mining today is facing one such situations with several incidents over the past six months. Below are three actions that need to be put in place to enhance the efficiency of the current system The first action is to investigate on the recent incidents that has occurred over the last two years and analyze the areas of high risk. It is possible that similar incidents due a certain set of actions are raising multiple accidents which would help the company narrow the areas where stringent rules and measures have to be applied (Breault, 2014). If there are multiple reasons for the various incidents occurred that would mean that the policy in place is not efficient enough and a new one should be put into place by inspecting the current setup. Over years and years of doing the same job, people often forget the importance of safety measures and take them for granted especially if no incidents have occurred in their line of work. When job turns into a habitual thing this could be an issue. Also, the safety measures are printed and displayed in the site however, it is unlikely that the same are being concentrated upon (Lodge, 2013). The company would have to conduct a seminar with the labor onsite to help them become aware of the increasing incidents and reiterate the safety measures and need to follow the same. Conduct an audit of the entire machinery and safety standards to analyze the compliance of the current standards. An audit which is usually conducted annually is preplanned and hence the machinery and the workers are prepared for the same. One the other hand a surprise audit can bring several new aspects into light and hence help the company understand the reasons for various incidents (Gregory, 2012). Areas where expert assistance would be required Expert assistance would be required to understand and identify patterns or common reasons of accidents if any and suggest how these can be avoided. The site manager is capable of doing the same. However, experts have a wider area of knowledge especially in safety and health hazards. They would have worked with not one but multiple companies adding experience with each incident at each of these sites (Horberry, 2016). Ideas implemented in other mining fields can also be suggested by them. Also, an outsider would generally have an unbiased opinion and in case of safety this is crucial. Improvement to the current WHS procedure Implementing a data analysis team. This is one step that can be added to WHS procedure. Essentially this team would not actually do anything during the accident. The first aid team is trained to do that. The quick reaction team, gathers data on how, why and the possible reason for the incident to occur and analyses the same to understand what has caused the situation. Every such incident would be documented by this team, not after months of the incident occurrence, but rather immediately. These incidents would then be bought up to the management with appropriate changes that can be done to eliminate similar cases (Cooke, 2015). Methods to assess compliance of WHS Assessing the current system and upgrading or improving the same is crucial for the development of the company. It is also necessary to ensure that all the safety standards are up to date and are in comply with the legislative and the organizational standards. One way of ensuring the same is by hiring a company that can analyze the safety measures. There are several online assessments and forums that work for the improvement of safety standards (Brilha, 2014). These assessment can be used to understand how well the company is in sync with the legislative standards. One another method is to be informed about the various policies that have been put up by the Australian government. The Aus Trade website has a list of rules, regulations and standards that have to be followed by the company in each industry. Mining has its own set of standards and can be found here. A comparison between the current standards of the company and these standards can be used to understand the compliance. Reference Breault, R. (2014). Mining the Potential in Your State Standards. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 50(1), 4-8. 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