The impact of non-technical issues on decision-making by coal mining incident management teams

Abstract

A serious incident in an underground coal mine can claim many lives in an instant. The lives of those who survive the initial moments can be dependent on the decisions made by the incident management team (IMT). The IMT is a team of mine employees assembled immediately upon the discovery of an incident to manage the response. Evaluations of annual emergency exercises conducted at underground coal-mines in Queensland have indicated that IMT decision-making is generally sub-optimal. This finding was echoed by the Royal Commission into the New Zealand Pike River Coal Mine Tragedy that occurred in 2010. In many other high-reliability roles technical and non-technical issues have been found to impact decision-making. The goal of this research is to explore the role of non-technical issues in emergency decision-making following an underground coal mining incident. A review of the Queensland emergency exercise reports, direct observation of emergency simulations, and interviews with twenty-five mining personnel with real-life incident management experience at underground coal mine emergencies has led to the development of a non-technical skills taxonomy for decision-making in mining IMTs. The decision-making process in a mining IMT has been shown to be a broad socio-psycho-technical process within which technical and non-technical issues cannot be separated. Technical, social and cognitive skills are imperative to maintain adequate communication, situation awareness and optimal decision-making throughout the emergency management process. Declaration by authorThis thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis.I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award.I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the General Award Rules of The University of Queensland, immediately made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968.I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis. Publications d...

Mejora de la gestión de riesgos mediante un Plan de Emergencia en las empresas mineras, 2021

“…Se evaluaron diversos trabajos de investigación con el fin de consolidar el estudio, tal como el de Carr (2014), quien tuvo como objetivo preparar a los ciudadanos para una respuesta integrada con el desarrollo de un sistema de respuesta a emergencias mejorado en eventos que pudieran suceder en la comunidad local siendo las capacitaciones un método de ayuda ante un desastre. Por otro lado, Fuller (2015) exploró las deficiencias que existen en la toma de decisiones no técnicas durante una respuesta en emergencias dentro de una mina subterránea de carbón, indicando que el desarrollo de una estructura taxonómica para el criterio de toma de decisiones mejora la comunicación y el desarrollo de la respuesta ante emergencias. Asimismo, (Tipler, 2017) demostró que la evaluación de procedimientos y el planteamiento de mejoras influyen positivamente en un ambiente seguro y preparado para afrontar un evento adverso.…”