Post by Derek Hird

Ground support shouldn't be viewed as a commodity—and treating it like one can have real consequences. In underground mining, we accept a simple reality: the environment is variable. Conditions change. Stress changes. Water changes. Ground behaviour changes. And those changes don’t announce themselves neatly. That’s exactly why ground support should be viewed as a safety product. It's an engineered product that is part of a broader safety system that protects people while enabling production. When ground support is commoditised, the conversation can drift toward lowest cost per unit without understanding the true embedded value in a product. How confident are we in performance—every time, in real conditions, over time? That's the true cost per unit. Because reliability isn’t just about the product itself. It’s also about: ✅ Manufacturing consistency and quality control ✅ Verification and testing (not just “meets spec”) ✅ Traceability (materials, batches, accountability) ✅ Designed support for ground conditions and mining method ✅ Installation support (the best product installed poorly is still a risk) At Sandvik Mining Ground Support, our mission is clear: we keep people safe. To me, that means we don’t reduce ground support to a purchasing exercise—we treat it as what it is: a critical control. Yes, everyone has cost pressure. But in safety-critical categories, cheap and value are not the same thing. If we get ground support right, we protect our people and stabilise operations. If we get it wrong, the impact can be immediate—and irreversible. #UndergroundMining #MiningSafety #GroundSupport #RiskManagement #ZeroHarm #Sandvik