Course Overview

Date: Thursday, August 13th
Time: 8:30am-12:30pm (AEST)
Location: Online via MS Teams

Critical Control Management (CCM) is an internationally recognised approach. This workshop looks at the pivotal role CCM plays in ensuring workplace safety and reducing Material Unwanted Events (MUEs).

The Queensland quarrying sector provides essential resources to the economy, without which we wouldn’t have our roads, schools, hospitals and many other vital services. However, with great economic benefit comes significant responsibility — specifically ensuring the safety and health of those who work in this high-risk sector.

The recently introduced Resources Safety and Health Queensland (RSHQ) Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 marks a significant step forward in strengthening the regulatory framework governing quarrying and other operations in Queensland. Central to this legislation are the critical control requirements designed to mitigate risks and enhance safety.

Introduced in Queensland Parliament on 18 April 2024, the Bill aims to enhance safety by introducing stricter protocols and ensuring high standards of health management. Its goals are to reduce fatalities and serious accidents and promote high-reliability organisation (HRO) behaviours within the resources sector.

The reforms are based on reviews of fatal accidents in Queensland mines and quarries from 2000 to 2019, the 2021 Queensland Coal Mining Board of Inquiry, and safety resets conducted in 2019 and 2021.

What are Critical Controls?

Critical controls are specific measures or actions that are essential to preventing fatalities and catastrophic events. They are designed to mitigate high-risk scenarios such as explosions, fires and structural failures, which can have devastating consequences.

These controls are identified based on systematic processes to identify the critical few.

Is Chronic Unease Healthy?

Having a healthy level of chronic unease can help identify weak danger signals, reduce complacency and improve alertness. However, just because a catastrophic event hasn’t happened unfortunately doesn’t mean it won’t.

Positive reinforcement of reporting near-miss events, acting on weak danger signals, and freely communicating good and bad news are all signs of a healthy culture.

Examples of weak danger signals could include:

• Unexpected maintenance results
• Variations from good practice that have become tolerated
• Noticing a colleague is distracted while carrying out a critical process
• A decision to carry on that we think was made too quickly

Workshop Overview

Critical Control Management (CCM) is an internationally recognised approach and an integral part of risk management that focuses on identifying and managing the controls that are critical to preventing catastrophic or fatal events.

Critical controls can either prevent a serious incident from happening in the first place or minimise the consequences if a serious accident was to occur.

Effective CCM plays a pivotal role in ensuring workplace safety and reducing Material Unwanted Events (MUEs). CCM enables organisations to better allocate resources — targeting the critical few — and assists boards, senior management and frontline operations to understand priorities, verify critical controls are effective and prevent catastrophic events.

Often organisations struggle to understand how to get started, how to deploy effective programs, or avoid unintended consequences.

To determine how effective your critical control verification activity is, ask the following:

• Are your metrics driving the right behaviour?
• Are you overly reliant on injury statistics?
• Are you focused on quantity of activity, rather than quality of controls?
• Do your operations have a healthy level of chronic unease?

Learning Objectives & Outcomes

Who is this course for?

This course is recommended for:

• Quarry Managers
• Quarry Supervisors
• Senior Managers
• Operations Managers
• Those with responsibility for safe systems of work, management and supervision

Registration Fees

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All information is correct at the time of publication. The IQA reserves the right to alter or delete items as required, and takes no responsibility for any errors, omissions or changes.