Overview
After years of promises, costly safety initiatives, and productivity-boosting programs, the reality is grim: safety progress has flatlined, and productivity has not meaningfully reversed its downward spiral. It’s time to challenge this broken system. This article explores how adopting a new paradigm—rooted in systems thinking and Safety 2 principles—can break the perceived conflict between Safety and productivity in (mining) operations.
The current reality
Miners are under constant pressure to improve Safety. After years of fatality reduction, progress is now stagnant. We are in a difficult space -long periods of stability punctuated by sudden jumps in fatalities. At the same time productivity in mining has been declining since the 2000s. When plotting the McKinsey Mine Lens Productivity index against mining fatalities/100 000 we see two curves that seem to overlay. An important question arises, is the relationship between the two curves causal, associated with a third variable or perhaps both?
When the Government hosts hearings into deaths in mining, both workers and management tend to argue from a negative correlation point of view. Management states that output will be reduced whenever there is a risk to workers' Safety. Worker representatives usually give examples around month and year ends when this is not the case.
Figure 1: Declining productivity and mining death reduction stagnant
Two decades of observations
Over 20 years and more than 90 Theory of Constraints (TOC)-based interventions, Stratflow has observed a consistent pattern: when productivity improvements are achieved through systems thinking and narrative initiatives, there is an immediate and notable improvement in safety performance. Clients have reported winning safety awards and have even suggested rebranding these productivity interventions as safety initiatives. This correlation indicates that the key to advancing both Safety and productivity lies in re-evaluating traditional management paradigms.
The safety productivity boundary
Rasmussen proposed that organisations organise and plan work so that it is performed within the safe and efficient zone, well away from the boundary where efficiency is high but Safety becomes marginal, as shown in Figure 2 below. Cook proposed that we can plot High-Reliability Organisations (HROs)as a narrowly spaced set of operating points while LROs are more diffuse and at higher risk of breaking through the boundary.
Figure 2: Rasmussen and Cook on Acceptable performance boundaries
From our experience ( Stratflow) we propose that it is more effective to shift the safety productivity boundary outwards(to the left) than to try and position ourselves more optimally within the current frontier. Once the boundary has shifted it should be easier to implement High Reliability Organisation ideas as well as many of the Safety Differently Principles.
What does a safety/efficiency boundary shifted outwards look like?
Have a look at the variability in Run of Mine (ROM) production in Figure 3 (this is an actual mine production example). The left side (orange) of this graph is typical for most mines-daily ROM production is well below the budgeted target and it shows high variability. It is unusual for the mine plan to stay intact for more than a few days under these circumstances. In this environment, managers and supervisors must continually adjust their plans and reallocate resources, shortening the planning horizon.
Work becomes difficult, and planning becomes less effective in ensuring the system's Safety. In some cases, the environment is such that workers and managers use the term "firefighting" to describe their experience. Managers' attention spans get overloaded, and they make primarily reactive decisions aimed at the present. (link 1)
Under these conditions, safety initiatives such as Safety 2 and High-Reliability Organisations struggle to deliver. In Safety 2, a prime area of focus is to identify areas and times when work is difficult and to improve the ease of getting work done. For HRO organisations, managers need to develop "chronic unease" and always be on the lookout for changing conditions and potential problems. It is difficult for managers to keep so many balls in the air.
Figure 3: Daily Run of mine (ROM) production
Now have a look now at the blue curve from after the TOC-based intervention. Daily ROM output is more stable and predictable (reduced variability). Our experience show that when the mine achieves "superflow in a spirit of calmness" (link 2), the safety performance immediately improves. We now have predictability and stability; this removes the pressure on supervisors at month and year-end to try to force more work through the system than what it can safely cope with. The mine plan has a much longer shelf life, planning is more effective, and managers can delegate responsibility with much lower production risk. (link 3)
The managerial span of attention expands, and without the need for prompting, more time is spent in the daily cross-functional meeting on Safety. Management can now practice "Chronic Unease" and spend time addressing situations that make the flow of work difficult. In this environment, the ideal conditions for implementing Safety 2 and HRO systems are set.
How can we generate the shift?
Flow Room
As shown by the blue curve in Figure 3, we must intervene in the operational system to ensure that the variability reduces while output increases. This requires counterintuitive actions- the bottleneck alone should be managed for maximum efficiency, and the remaining operations departments need protective (excess) capacity- this goes against many of the industrial and information age ideas.
At Stratflow, we have developed a dual management operating system we call the Productivity Platform that delivers the missing functionality (agility) without detracting from the benefits of a traditional hierarchy(stability). The Productivity Platform is based on TOC principles and Dialogic Organisation Development and fits into the current management system with minimal interference while reducing the overall workload.
The 'Flow Room' is the vehicle for making the change happen. It is where the heads of departments, middle managers, and selected employees get up-to-date visual information on what is happening across the business and implement the Productivity Platform. Setting up a Flow Room enables teamwork across layers and functions. Colour codes identify where attention should be focused and where help from support functions, such as HR, supply chain and maintenance, is required.
The Flow Room moves the company out of firefighting by highlighting problems before they occur and putting in shock absorbers (buffers) to handle variation and interdependence.
It also adds the agility that most hierarchical organisations lack by enabling the formation and dissolution of cross-functional teams as needed, facilitating rapid problem-solving and collaboration. The Flow Room encourages continuous monitoring and rapid feedback loops, allowing for real-time adjustments in plans and operations. This is crucial in mining, where delays in response can lead to significant safety risks, production losses, and increased costs.
Mining companies can effectively manage the tension between stability and agility by integrating the Flow Room into the existing Management Operating System (MOS) (link 4). This combined approach allows smoother day-to-day operations while being nimble enough to handle unexpected challenges, thereby increasing overall operational resilience.
Learning teams and collective improvements
The increased stability and reduced risk allow managers to delegate more opportunities for improvement, enabling workers to achieve purpose mastery and autonomy.
Collective Improvements and Learning Teams allow management and frontline to develop a joint understanding of the interrelated challenges that combine to make work difficult. Work as Done becomes visible, and management can better design Work as Imagined to match. It identifies the crucial leverage points (seldom more than two) that need to be addressed to improve the flow of work. By allowing resources to focus on only a few leverage points, the resource constraint is alleviated, and the alignment between work as done and work as imagined multiplies the impact. By providing a common vision of what needs to be done to management and workers can align what they do and support one another. Momentum is built and maintained by achieving success early in the project, and a positive feedback loop ensues.
Conclusion
The longstanding conflict between Safety and productivity in the mining industry is not an inevitability but a product of outdated mental models and management paradigms. By embracing systems thinking and integrating Safety 2 principles, organisations can break free from this perceived trade-off. The key lies in shifting the safety-productivity boundary outward through interventions that reduce operational variability and enhance stability.
Stratflow's experience over the past two decades demonstrates that when mining operations achieve "superflow in a spirit of calmness," safety performance naturally improves alongside productivity. Tools like the Flow Room and methodologies that encourage cross-functional collaboration and systems thinking(TOC) enable managers and workers to proactively address challenges, reduce firefighting, and create a safer, more efficient working environment.
This paradigm shift requires courage and a willingness to question established practices. By interrogating and evolving our mental models, we can create a future where Safety and productivity are not opposing forces but synergistic components of a thriving mining operation. The path forward is clear and achievable: adopt a new mindset that values systemic understanding, empowers workers, and leverages the principles of Safety 2 to create lasting, positive change in the industry.
Written By
Hendrik Lourens
Stratflow
Comments