Coal handling operational risk management: Stripped overburden transport in brown coal open pit mines

Abstract

This paper deals with the management of coal handling operational risks related to the transport of stripped overburden in giant brown coal pit quarries. It aims to identify and analyze the operational risks of currently applied continuous conveyance and to consider alternative transport, i.e., discontinuous transport. The Ishikawa diagram was used to identify the degree of operational risks affecting the net present value in both transport technologies. The operational risks examined were: human factor, suppliers, legislation, technology, environment, and market. Failure Mode and Effects Analysis was then used to evaluate the operational risks of continuous and discontinuous overburden transport technologies. The data for the analyses were obtained by means of a survey among experts in the field. The analyses show that the most significant operational risks of continuous transport are: lower demand for coal, an increase in the investment costs, conveyance breakdowns, the quality of the transported material, and work attitude. In the discontinuous technology, the identified operational risks were: increases in the cost of fuels, road maintenance and costs of tires, low-qualified labor; and work attitude. The comparison of the two examined technologies shows that discontinuous transport technology involves more operational risks than the continuous one.