News - csm safety research
University of Exeter press release
Academics from the University of Exeter's Tremough Campus are achieving international acclaim for developing a new approach to health and safety in the quarrying industry. Anam Parand and Dr Patrick Foster, both based at the University of Exeter's Camborne School of Mines (CSM) on the Tremough Campus, which is part of the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC) initiative, have travelled to the other side of the world to present their award-winning research.
Anam Parand, an expert in workplace psychology, has been working with CSM mining engineering experts at six quarries across the UK. By spending time working with employees at all levels in each quarry, she has identified the root causes of the most common accidents and established new, bespoke approaches to tackling them. In one case, this resulted in a 95 per cent reduction in unsafe incidents.
Ms Parand and Dr Foster have presented their research findings at conferences in Queensland, Australia, South Africa and Germany. They have also won the Health & Safety Best Practice Award from the Quarry Product Association and were awarded a certificate of achievement at the Royal Society for the Protection of Accidents RyderMarsh Behavioural Safety Best Practice Awards.
'Quarrying is a growth industry in the UK with around 3,000 quarries in the UK, currently employing some 35,000 people,' said Anam Parand. 'It also has one of the highest rates of injury of any industry. There is an urgent need to improve safety in the sector and by working with employees at all levels to establish the root causes of accidents and come up with practical solutions we believe we can make a real difference.'
This study is funded by the Minerals Industry Sustainable Technology Programme (MIST) and the Objective One Cornwall Research Fund. It is supported by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The minerals company, WBB Minerals Ltd, has offered its quarries to trial the behavioural safety process.
Andy Price, Integrated Systems Manager for WBB Minerals said: 'This project has brought real benefits, not least the better team working that it has helped to inspire between operatives and management. What started as an operative led initiative soon became a valuable platform for two way discussion, problem solving and empowerment of the workforce on key health and safety issues. The systematic measurement of unsafe acts, relevant to each individual site, forms just the starting point. We look forward, in the next phase of the project, to widening the CSM methodology to include environment and quality risks alongside health and safety - a truly integrated approach.'
CUC Executive Director, Dr Ian Tunbridge commented: 'This is a great example of academic research leading to real advances in business. The new approach pioneered in Cornwall has the potential to help quarries become safer and ultimately more profitable. The presence of world class experts in the county also acts as a magnet for inward investment as businesses seek to tap into the wealth of specialist knowledge now held within the CUC partnership.'
Ms Parand and Dr Foster now aim to have this research published in an academic journal and are also trialing the research at three more WBB Minerals quarry sites in Devon and East Anglia.