Michelle Ray
CEO and Founder, Certified Speaking Professional, Lead Yourself First Enterprise
Born in Australia and now residing in Vancouver, Michelle is a health and safety speaker renowned for her expertise on leadership, accountability, influence and building outstanding safety cultures.
Michelle has worked with hundreds of leaders and their teams in diverse industries including occupational health and safety within private and public enterprise, construction, mining, as well as oil and gas. She demonstrates a deep understanding of team dynamics, interpersonal communication and personal responsibility.
As an in-demand conference presenter, Michelle utilizes a dynamic, interactive and highly engaging style. She has earned the Certified Speaking Professional Designation, held by less than 800 people worldwide.
You may also like
Simon Worland
Caltex
Dr Dave Collins and James Forsyth
Synergetics Consulting Engineers
Use of compressed air to clean electrical equipment is a routine maintenance task in heavy mining equipment (HME) across the Queensland Mining Industry. During cleaning elevated levels of harmful dust can engulf the compressed air cleaning operator for extended periods and increase the risk of developing lung diseases including pneumoconiosis and silicosis.
In 2017 the Queensland Mines Inspectorate (Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, 2018) reported that approximately 50% of all respirable dust and Respirable Crystalline Silica (RCS) exceedances in surface coal mines were directly related to the use of compressed air for compressed air cleaning of equipment prior to maintenance.
Respiratory protection has historically been viewed as the primary control to protect the health of compressed air cleaning operators, as higher order controls such as engineering controls have not been considered feasible.
The principal of applying engineering controls for compressed air cleaning of haul truck electrical cabinets was reported and demonstrated at the Queensland Mining Industry Health and Safety Conference in 2018 (Worland, Stream, Brett and Collins). Here the electrical cabinets were converted into full enclosures under negative pressure resulting in a physical barrier between the worker and the dust generating compressed air cleaning task.
This paper describes the further development and field testing of engineering controls over the intervening 12 months. Safe compressed air cleaning has now been demonstrated for a broad range of HME including trucks, excavators, dragline MG sets and stationary equipment. The controls incorporate continuous monitoring of airborne particulate with feedback systems to shutdown compressed air and demonstrate that safe compressed air cleaning is achievable.
Ramsay Wells
Business Manager, Queensland Mines Rescue Service
Matthew Farrelly
Manager VRT, Queensland Mines Rescue Service
We live in a world that is constantly changing, and that change continues to accelerate.
Technology has improved the way we train, everything from video animations to learn from disasters, through to e-learning to enhance assessment capabilities.
A new era of training is here, a growing number of organisations are recognising the power of simulation based training. Simulation based training is hardly new, it’s been used in military and aviation for over 50 years – however it has always been expensive and out of reach for most organisations.
Enter the wave of VR and AR headsets available to the consumer, meaning that this technology is now affordable for any business. eg. Walmart uses VR to train over 1 million associates, seeing an improvement in their test scores by 10-15%. This has been achieved by providing almost 20,000 VR headsets across their stores.
QMRS started delivering simulation based training 24 months ago, using desktop-based VR. Then 12 months ago presented headset based training to the industry. Now, the service is preparing to roll out free-roam based VR training for the industry at their Rescue Stations.
24 months is all it has taken to see such a massive change to the way people can be trained.
This presentation will show the journey that Mines Rescue have taken to equip the industry with access to the next generation of cost effective training, that is available right now for the industry’s workforce.
We will highlight the benefits of improved safety outcomes, better prepared employees, safer work environments and value dollar propositions in your continued push to stay meaningful in this technology revolution.
Warren Smith
Executive Consultant, Dekra Insight Australia
Organisations commonly put controls in place to address typical workplace exposures that can cause harm. They also attempt to make use of human performance tools and other measures that aim to address human error. Unfortunately, these efforts often don’t yield tangible results as evidenced through operational upsets and unplanned events.
This session will explore Brain-Centred Hazards and will demonstrate how accurate, consistent and sustainable hazard recognition and situational awareness can only be achieved by first addressing these Brain-Centred Hazards in our workplaces. In particular, the audience will explore the difference between traditional hazard identification and an approach that increases deep noticing for optimal hazard ID.
Additionally, the audience will learn the hidden dangers of cognitive fatigue and how it diminishes situational awareness and hazard recognition, and simultaneously produces higher risk-taking actions that can lead to injury, upset, catastrophe, or reputational damage.
Nikky LaBranche
Industry Fellow, Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland
David Cliff
Professor of OHS in Mining, Minerals Industry – Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland
NIKKY LaBRANCHE – Nikky is a resources sector professional with mining engineering and health and safety research experience spanning three continents. She is currently an Industry Fellow with the Minerals Industry Safety and Health Centre undertaking a strategic gap analysis of particulates in the resources sector. Her research interests also include incident management practices and accident/injury analysis and investigation.
Nikky is currently Chair of the AusIMM Southern Queensland Branch and a Board Member of the AusIMM Health and Safety Society. She holds an MBA and both an RPEQ and Professional Engineer credentials in the US.
DAVID CLIFF – David has over 30 years in the resources sector in Australia. His experience spans both research and consulting settings as the manager of both the Occupational Hygiene Environment and Chemistry Centre and the Mining Research Centre at SIMTARS, Occupational Health and Safety Advisor to the Queensland Resources Council and Professor of OHS in Mining and Professor of Risk and Knowledge Transfer at the University of Queensland.
David has provided OHS advice particularly in the areas of OHS risk management, governance and education and training. He has provided this specialist support to governments, unions and companies.
Glenn Aitchison
Project Officer, Simtars
Information deficiencies during emergencies is increasingly seen as a critical issue for emergency response. Information should be gathered to provide “intelligence” about the underground conditions after a major incident, such as an explosion or rock fall. This project investigated four key areas related to information gathering:
- Post explosion atmosphere monitoring:– An industry study into available, low powered, sensors were conducted. The study was to identify commercially available equipment to sample the mine atmosphere post an underground incident.
- Ultra-resilient communication system:– An investigation was undertaken into the feasibility of components for a robust and resilient mine communication network. The network must survive an underground incident and be able to transmit information in and out of an underground mine environment.
- Blast protection (or blast resilience):– The blast protection was evaluated through subjecting different shapes of enclosures to actual blasts, in an explosion propagation tube.
- Navigational aids:– A series of test were undertaken to determine the suitability of using visible light, infra-red as well as radar to aid in self rescue. All test were undertaken in a “dusty”, or low-visibility, environment.
This paper will present the results obtained for each of the key areas and highlight the potential of such a system in an underground coal mine environment.
James Pearce
Advocate, Black Lung Victims Support Group
The re-emergence of Dust Diseases in Queensland’s coal industry is having a devastating effect on workers, their families and mining communities. More than 100 employees have been diagnosed as suffering from different forms of pneumoconiosis, predominantly Black Lung and silicosis. There are many more Victims being regularly identified.
While the main challenge facing our entire industry is the effective prevention of Dust Diseases in our coal mines, the identification of all Victims is a moral obligation on all stakeholders in the industry. This involves not only world’s best practice testing of the present workforce but also of those who have retired from the industry and those who have left it before retiring.
While prevention and identification of Black Lung are essential, the most pressing issue at the present time is the treatment and health care of those who have been, and will continue to be, Victims of these Dust Diseases. This paper on behalf of Black Lung Victims will outline our proposals for how the industry working with government can provide for the life-long medical care needed for the best possible quality of life for sufferers. We owe them at least that.
Tom Cobcroft
GM/SSE Capcoal Surface Operations
Dev Gil-Sanchez
Business Improvement Specialist, Anglo American – Capcoal Open Cut
Anthony Manousso
Control Systems Coordinator, Anglo American – Capcoal Open Cut
Bunds are a safety critical control in open pit mining to prevent and mitigate risks associated with heavy vehicle operations. Between 2014-2019 at Capcoal Surface we have had 14 incidents and in Queensland 2012 – 2018, 47 incidents where bunds have stopped uncontrolled vehicles and prevented potentially fatal injuries. At Capcoal we have 100km+ of bunds in the pit, with more than 50 heavy vehicles interacting regularly. Currently the process to monitor & audit the compliance to standard is made via visual inspection with no quantitative process or records.
In a collaboration with SICK sensors we developed a system using laser sensors to scan the bunds and provide a comprehensive measurement including not only height but:
- Roadside facing batter angle.
- Width at the top, if applicable, trapezoidal bunds.
- Distance to high-wall.
Data is transmitted via ethernet to a central data collection system called TDC which then generates a heatmap and a report identifying sections of bund requiring intervention and their criticality.
Some of the benefits of this development, besides measuring all characteristics mentioned before are:
- Is an objective and quantitative process to monitor / audit bunds compliance to standard in real time.
- Cost and time efficient solution as to comply with inspectorate recommendations then survey would be required, incurring in extra cost to audit.
- Visibility across all active bunds and ranking of deficient sections to prioritise as per criticality.
Next is presented an schematic of the sensors installed on a truck and scanning the bunds at both sides.
Josh Leppard
Overburden Supervisor, BMA Saraji Mine
Tragically Saraji Mine had a fatality on New Year’s Eve 2018 involving a bulldozer rolling down an embankment. The first responders to this incident required the use of heavy duty slings and shackles to upright the dozer. This involved personnel traversing down a steep embankment on undulated ground during the night carrying D-shackles that weighed approximately 62kg each, this created a significant manual handling risks to the people involved.
Post incident, Saraji became aware of light weight synthetic couplings that are made specifically for the marine industry that significantly reduced the weight whilst providing exceptional strength properties.
We reached out to the manufacture of the light weight synthetic couplings in New Zealand in an attempt to replicate this technology within the mining industry. By substituting the existing steel D-shackle with a custom made light weight synthetic design, we have reduced the potential of a manual handling incident when recovering surface mobile equipment or the potential for stored energy within the steel to become airborne should the steel D-shackle capacity be exceeded.
The soft couplings were tested to 175,000 kg for a maximum breaking force (MBF) of 510,000 kg without breakage and have a total weight of 8.2 kg compared to the 62 kg steel D-shackles that are normally used.
The synthetic couplings have been successfully trialled on site to extract various pieces of surface mobile equipment. They have been included as mandatory items in the emergency equipment recovery trailer along with other items to aid in the immediate recovery should the need arise.