Pit & Quarry, May 2016
safety ReseARcH HAzARd recognition NIOSH is taking steps to help aggregate industry workers spot potential accidents before they happen Story and photoS by NIOSH PIttSburgH MININg reSearcH DIvISION R esearchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety Health NIOSH are studying how workers in the stone sand and gravel industry search for and find hazards in their work environment Data collection is currently underway Mine workers safety professionals and mining students are visiting the Pittsburgh research laboratory and viewing panoramic images of the pit plant shop and roadway at a surface stone mine Participants are asked to identify hazards in these images while researchers track where and how they are looking Participants then sit down with researchers and discuss the hazards they identified and or missed The groups initial data analyses from the Virtual Immersive Simulation Laboratory VISLab research show several interesting results First mine workers are generally more knowledgeable about hazards that occur at their typical work location For instance front end loader and haul truck operators who spend a majority of their days loading in the pit are able to correctly identify more highwall and loading hazards than workers who spend time at other locations at the mine site Also mine workers from the same mine site are more likely to identify and then talk about issues that are critical to their specific work site For example all participating mine workers from one site focused on issues related to berms inadequate berm height missing berms and shallow catch berms During discussion it became clear that berms were critical to these workers first because of the material they mine and second because this was an issue that was identified during a recent Mine Safety Health Administration inspection Overall these initial observations indicate that what workers identify as hazards can be affected by the environment where they work and also by what has already been identified as hazards to address InITIAl fIndIngs Based on these initial results NIOSH suggests the following considerations for mine operators Participants in the nIOsH study wear eye tracking spectacles in the nioSH ViSLab while searching for hazards in large panoramic pictures from a stone mine these pictures include a variety of hazards e g electrical slip and fall missing berms etc and participants are instructed to search the panoramic image to find all potential hazards the eye tracking spectacles record where the participant is looking 52 PIT QUARRY May 2016 pitandquarry com
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