PROCESS

Achievement: Essakane SA attained OHSAS 18001-ISO 14001 integrated certification.

Why is this important? The implementation of management systems that are recognized internationally empowers our employees to take action supported by management leadership in order to achieve ZERO incidents in all phases of our operations.

OHSAS 18001 is an Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series for health and safety management systems. It is intended to help organizations effectively manage occupational health and safety risks. It was developed in response to widespread demand for a recognized standard against which to be certified and assessed. OHSAS accreditation helps minimize risk to employees by improving an existing Occupational Health & Safety management system; it demonstrates diligence and gains assurance.

Westwood Underground Identification Cards

Keeping track of the number of people on a site is important from a security and safety perspective. Numerous groups move in and out of the mines. Identifying new people that include contractors, new employees and potential intruders is important. certification

It is cause for even greater concern during emergencies such as evacuations due to fire, gas or seismic activity where it is important to know the number of people underground and their exact location. Proper control to limited-access sectors is also a security priority for areas such as the explosive magazine, refinery and nursery. To solve this problem, an underground card carried by workers coupled with scanners and presence screens at strategic locations; e.g. mine rescue room, allow this tracking to take place. The same technology is used to help track the entry and exit of vehicles onto the property.

Deck meeting before team goes underground at Westwood.

Incident Cause Analysis Method (ICAM)

ICAM The Incident Cause Analysis Method (ICAM) is an investigation methodology chosen as the IAMGOLD standard for internal Significant Incident Reporting (SIR). ICAM aims to identify both causal factors and organizational failures contributing to incidents. The real benefit of ICAM is learning from the incident and building error-tolerant defenses that manage risk and help prevent recurrence.

The objective for 2011 was to further implement this investigation methodology across the organization, by having internal ICAM specialists trained at each site to further deploy training within the site. Some sites had already become competent in ICAM prior to 2011, i.e. Rosebel, while French speaking sites completed the “train the trainer” initiative in 2011 (achieving the target of one ‘trainer’ per site). All the material was translated into French and some sites were to further deploy ICAM. Niobec completed training on their teams with the remaining sites to complete ICAM training in 2012.

Risk & Management HAZOP at Essakane

HAZOP is a qualitative risk analysis method relying on the cooperation of a multidisciplinary team of 21 people composed of a variety of stakeholders. The approach consists of 5 steps that have been outlined in the diagram below:

HAZARD AND OPERABILITY (HAZOP) project

qualitative risk analysis method based on the collaborative work of a multidisciplinary team of all stakeholders in a process. Application on the circuit of lime at the mill

Result: This project was a springboard for the evaluation of efficient productivity indicators, and for improving the Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) culture within the group. It also helped employees to better understand the potential risks associated with their activities; e.g. identifying hazards during inspection.