Project delivery company WorleyParsons RSA participated in two workshops to develop a new ISO standard – ISO 19426 Design of structures for the mining industry – held in Stockholm in June last year and in Dubai in January 2016. A further meeting is planned for October which is to be held in Toronto. New ISO standards are developed to define requirements, specifications, guidelines or characteristics related to an industry sector that can be consistently applied worldwide. ISO International Standards ensure that products, services and procedures are safe, reliable and of a good quality.

“We are providing input to this standard as we believe that the greatest contribution we can make to the mining industry is our experience, having executed the design and construction supervision of  many  shaft projects,” says WorleyParsons RSA CEO Denver Dreyer. “This experience is embodied in WorleyParsons’ SEAL (Safe and Sustainable Engineering for Asset Lifecycle) and SID (Safety in Design) principles, which directly translate into a safe working environment. This is WorleyParsons’ ethos of Zero Harm to its environment and its people as iterated by the WorleyParsons Group CEO Andrew Wood.

SEAL is WorleyParsons' enhanced engineering framework that through defining and combining the elements of technical integrity with safe and sustainable solutions for asset lifecycle, helps deliver a design that is safer to build and safer to operate for its customers. The SID principle refers to the responsibility of every person involved in engineering design. 
“Our participation in the development of ISO standards impacts, to a greater or lesser extent, all twelve aspects of WorleyParsons’ OneWay™ integrity management framework.

In addition, we believe strongly in impacting the society at large, and participation in international standards is one of the ways in which we give back to the mining community,” continues Dreyer. “These standards not only provide the industry with best practices but also ensure that we enhance safety that is embedded in the design codes and construction activities. Participating in ISO standards is a positive way to impact safety culture in the greater mining industry and show WorleyParsons’ commitment to Zero Harm.”

Once the need for a new ISO standard has been identified, a working group under the appropriate technical committee is formed, in this case TC82. WG4, the working group for the development of ISO 19426, is chaired by Dr Geoff Krige, a South African structural engineer with significant experience in the design of mining structures. The working group comprises a panel of technical experts from countries with an interest in structures in the mining industry. One of the major challenges with the preparation of this code is to obtain buy-in from all the countries that are represented in the working group.

This requires that aspects that are designed differently in the representative countries are discussed in detail and an agreement has to be reached about the approach to be adopted in the standard. Another aspect that proves challenging is that all the members of the working group are volunteers, supported by their employers.

Hamish Riddet, Senior Project Manager at WorleyParsons RSA and the company’s representative for WG4, said to reduce the overall time and effort required to prepare the ISO 19426 standard, the working group used the SANS 10208 code, a set of standards covering the design of mining-related structures published by the South African Bureau of Standards as the basis. He added that using a document already available has contributed significant value to the process of preparing the ISO draft standard.