82 / 2021-09-21 18:44:05

A New Risk Assessment Method Proposal for the Mining Sector Including Accident Costs

occupational safety,occupational health and safety,mining,cost reliability,risk assessment

According to the statistics of the ILO (International Labor Organization), mining workers are at least 3 times more likely to be exposed to accidents than other workers in the different fields [1] because mining is a multidisciplinary sector that is carried out under very harsh conditions [2, 3]. Occupational safety, which is crucial for mining operations, conceptually refers to a safe working environment and the main goal is to prevent risks that may cause work accidents and occupational diseases. Risk management is the key factor to achieve a safe working environment and can only be effective with the right analysis and assessments [4]. Risk assessment is a systematic review. The risks that may arise from possible hazards must be fully determined and analyzed [5]. Analyzes usually focus on probability and severity parameters. The probability parameter expresses the probability of the potential risk to occur, and the severity parameter expresses the damage to the affected employees in case of the realization of the risk [6]. However, in the case of realization of each risk, there is a cost to the business because factors such as stoppage of work, equipment damage, and loss of workforce negatively affect sustainable mining by causing financial damage [7]. This situation may indirectly hinder occupational health and safety practices. The aim of this study is to bring a scoring-based risk assessment method to the literature, which provides the opportunity to evaluate the effects of occupational health and safety risks in all dimensions. Therefore, a risk assessment method with probability, risk potential, severity, and cost parameters has been proposed. The method card containing the scores corresponding to the linguistic expressions and the application principles is given in Figure 1. In this content, “Probability” is the probability that the determined risk will occur; “Risk Potential” means the potential situation of triggering risk factors in the working environment; “Violence” means the most likely potential for damage to employees in the event of the identified risk; “Cost” refers to the material cost to the business if the identified risk materializes. In order to test the applicability and effectiveness of the method, two risk assessment applications were carried out with both the proposed method and the traditional method, using statistical data in an underground coal mine. According to the results, with the inclusion of operating costs in the analysis, more realistic data were revealed compared to traditional methods. In addition, the proposed method contributes significantly to occupational health and safety risk assessment practices, as well as creating a basis for cost reliability.