Welcome to the April 2025 edition of CORESafety TV, brought to you by the National Mining Association (NMA).

Recently, NMA developed an updated version of CORESafety, the legacy safety and health management system (SHMS) for our member companies.

CORESafety TV is now featuring an overview of each of the ten (10) new modules that comprise the system.

Take a few minutes now for a look at Module 3 –

(Click here to watch)

Want to see this CORESafety TV episode
with Spanish subtitles? Click here

CORESafety Module 3:  
Risk Management

The persistence of high-severity events suggests that approaches rooted in management systems are needed to improve safety and health outcomes.

The backbone of this effort is the risk management process, which identifies risks associated with specific mining activities and ways to proactively mitigate those risks to prevent injuries and fatalities.

Risk management aims to reduce risk to the lowest practical level. Risk management processes are used domestically and internationally by many high-hazard industries.

CORESafety’s Module 3 covers a variety of approaches where a risk management process should be applied, including process safety and emergency management.

Broadly, this module reviews these varying processes through a risk management framework, including:

• Identifying and reviewing all safety and health hazards.
• Assessing and prioritizing risks associated with those hazards, emphasizing risks that could have catastrophic consequences, including fatal ones.
• Developing and applying controls systematically to eliminate or minimize negative outcomes.
• Verifying controls remain effective over time and are modified as/if circumstances change (i.e., management of change).

Risk management starts with operation planning, which is conducted on an ongoing basis and continues until closure. Risk assessment can involve technical staff (engineers), managers, and workers with appropriate knowledge and experience.

Identification of work activities and situations that should be subject to a heightened examination should not be limited to those activities for which companies have had prior incidents.

The presence or use of the activity, even very infrequently, is adequate justification for inclusion. Specifically, there are two general groups of work activities: 

1) High frequency, low severity/consequence work, and

2) Low frequency, high severity/consequence work.

Both groups require effective risk assessment, controls and continuous audits.

Companies should determine what should be audited and how and when tools should be used to manage audits. Each site will develop or adopt and use risk assessment tools, processes, and procedures based on its specific needs.

Regardless of the tools selected, they should be strategically integrated into a risk management plan’s identification, assessment, and mitigation components.

MORE TO KNOW

Be sure to watch CORESafety TV in the coming months as we update you on all ten of the new CORESafety modules!

To visit our CORESafety website, click here.