Strategic Health and Safety Optimization in Transition from Open Pit to Underground Mines

Grants and Contracts Details

Description

Optimizing health and safety in transitioning from surface to underground mines With around a century of history in transitioning from surface to underground mining and even though more than 80 years has passed since the establishment of the ?rst mine safety act in the US, we are yet to see a comprehensive health and safety considerate planning, design, and operation in such a mining environment. However, transitioning from surface to underground mining requires careful planning, adequate training, and robust safety measures to mitigate the health and safety risks associated with working in such a complex environment. If approved by the government, in this 5-year long project, a team of ten experts including four professors along with four PhD and two MSc students will work on the four main pillars of a transition from surface to underground, namely, ground control, production planning, ?eet management, and ventilation to provide the partners and agencies with health and safety considerate transition plan. Analyzing impact of surface activity on underground and vice versa, in each of above-mentioned pillars, predicting possible health and safety risk resulting from those impacts, and ?nally prioritizing and minimizing those risks, with four distinct, yet, highly interacting projects, this endeavor will conclude with a comprehensive best practice guideline to be used by the partner organizations in their already transitioned, in transition, or planned to transition mining operation to plan, design, and operate with optimum health and safety considerations. A part from the ?nal deliverable, structuring the projects on agile management strategy and utilizing Kaizen technique from lean production approach, semi-annual meetings will be held with the partners to continually improve the works by receiving feedbacks on the interim ?ndings and inputs for the next steps so that the applicability of the ?ndings are veri?ed.
StatusActive
Effective start/end date9/30/249/29/25

Funding

  • National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health: $249,999.00

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