The Application of a High Reliability Organisational Maturity Model for Coal Mining

A recent review into the safety performance of the mining industry in Queensland, Australia known as ‘The Brady Review’ examined fatal mining industry accidents and identified a perceived drift into failure for this industry. In order to reduce the rate of serious accidents and fatalities, two key recommendations, imbedded in High Reliability Organisational theory, were made for the mining industry. These related to the need to adopt the principles of High Reliability Organisational theory and to move towards operating more like High Reliability Organisations.This research was therefore interested in measuring a coal mining organisation’s High Reliability Organisation maturity as a practical starting point to adopt these recommendations. Therefore, a High Reliability Organisational maturity model known as the Organisational Reliability Maturity Model was used to ascertain scores on the five principles of High Reliability Organising.Results provided insight into the organisation’s High Reliability Organisational maturity including its overall organisational strengths and opportunities to improve, as well as inconsistencies among organisational departments and organisational levels. This research demonstrates the applicability of the Organisational Reliability Maturity Model in the mining industry and as such sets the groundwork for organisations to understand High Reliability Organisational theory applicability as a way forward to enhance safety performance.