How Many Near Misses Are You One Step Away from Turning into Tragedy?
A mining operation was facing a troubling rise in near misses, unreported hazards, overlooked critical controls, and frontline workers normalizing unsafe conditions. Pre-task safety checks were inconsistent, verification steps were often skipped, and stop-work authority had lost its influence on the floor. Despite having policies in place, there was no structured process that made safety steps visible, repeatable, or enforceable across teams.
Supervisors were too stretched to manually follow up on every safety requirement. Near-miss reports, when submitted, were handwritten or buried in spreadsheets, making trend analysis impossible and closing the feedback loop unrealistic. Safety felt like a compliance checkbox rather than a proactive behavior, and leadership couldn’t pinpoint where risks were escalating until an investigation was triggered.
Solutions
Our MOS experts designed and implemented a Critical Safety Control and Near Miss Reporting Process to make safety visible, actionable, and owned. This included clearly defined verification steps for high-risk activities, built into each operational task. Pre-shift safety confirmations, embedded stop-work triggers, and a simplified, constructive near-miss reporting routine were introduced.
Follow-up reviews, linked to both operational leads and safety coordinators, ensured each report translated into a response, whether it was a process update, training refresh, or engineering control. Roles were defined, accountability was formalized, and safety behaviors became structured and repeatable, not assumed or improvised.
The Minelogik Advantage
Once this structured safety process is established, Minelogik can significantly deepen its effectiveness by digitizing and automating each step. Safety-critical tasks can include embedded verification steps that prevent them from being marked complete until controls are confirmed. Near-miss reports can be submitted directly through the system, routed to the appropriate owner, and escalated if no action is taken. Supervisors receive real-time alerts when safety steps are missed, allowing them to respond proactively. Every control and report are tied to a specific role using Minelogik’s RACI structure, making responsibility clear and traceable. Over time, site-wide safety trends are visualized through dashboard analytics, transforming disconnected reports into actionable insights for leadership and risk mitigation.
Expected Key Outcomes
Safety control compliance can reach 100%, as steps become mandatory within the workflow.
Near-miss reporting frequency can increase by up to 300%, fostering a culture of visibility and prevention.
Time to resolve safety issues can be reduced by 50%, through automated task routing and escalation.
Supervisor safety engagement can improve significantly, supported by system-driven reminders and progress tracking.
Organizational learning is accelerated, as every report feeds back into systemic improvements, not one-off fixes.