Safer by Design is a ground breaking project that will reduce injuries and ill-health attributable to poor mobile plant design. Research has shown that even though meeting international safety standards and the requirements of the EU Machinery Directive, a significant proportion of incidents involving mobile plant on mineral producing and processing sites are due to poor design.

User companies and mobile plant manufacturers have co-operated in helping to identify key safety features on mobile plant that represent best practice. The features have been combined into voluntary guidance which recommends core safety requirements for loaders, bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, mobile crushers and screens.

Operators who commit voluntarily to this best practice guidance will specify some or all of these safety features on new plant purchases. They will also be able to compare their existing plant against the guidance. This ALSF funded project has achieved cross industry support and generated significant international interest from companies involved in minerals extraction. The principles are closely mirrored in other parts of the world, eg: the global Earth Moving Equipment Safety Round Table (EMESRT) initiative, managed and facilitated in Australia by the University of Queensland.