Continuous improvement in geotechnical design and practice

Geotechnical design and practice has been recognised as a key issue to be addressed by the mining industry in Western Australia in order to eliminate the unacceptably high number of fatalities and to reduce injuries and accidents. A sharp increase in the geotechnical efforts committed by the underground mines has been experienced. Consequently, the incident rates at the mine sites have been significantly reduced. In this paper, several key features of the efforts to improve geotechnical design and practice are discussed. A number of successful initiatives are presented to highlight the progress that has been made. The geotechnical challenges facing the underground mines are also discussed.