The Pike River Mining disaster was a wakeup call for New Zealand to make industry leaders more accountable for the health and safety of the workers they are responsible for. In this new environment of care and accountability, it is probably not Business as Usual (BAU) risks that will keep us awake at night, but rather the things we don't know about; the hidden vulnerabilities in our infrastructure, systems and practices that expose us to the possibility, however unlikely, of disruption, injury or loss of life. The common theme of the regulatory changes that are coming into force is an emphasis on demonstrable, evidence-based risk management and decision making. When incidents happen, and especially when they involve loss of life, investigators and regulators will be asking the following questions: 1. Was it foreseeable? 2. What should you have known as a prudent operator? 3. Was there something more you could reasonably have done to eliminate or minimise the risk? Simply having a scenario listed on a risk register will not be sufficient to demonstrate prudent management. But how are we supposed to anticipate let alone manage the highly improbable? In this paper we discuss several examples of High Impact, Low Probability (HILP) events, sometimes referred to as 'Black Swan' events; and we follow with a suggested methodology to manage them.
展开▼
