In the past five years, there has been an evolution in the assessment and
control of mining risks in the New South Wales coal mining industry.
This change has involved the development and use of structured,
systematic, team-based risk assessment exercises to identify, assess and
control unacceptable risks to people, equipment and production. The
outcomes have improved the management systems in the mine. This
paper discusses the evolution of the risk assessment approach in
equipment design and mine operations, as well as the specific risk
assessment methodology. The paper also presents the reactive side of risk
management, the method of investigating failures in the management
system, usually referred to as incidents or accidents.