Coal Handling Operational Risk Management

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.