Sean Brady is set to bring his much-anticipated keynote speech to the IQA National Conference from October 6-8 on the Gold Coast.
At first glance, a Boeing 737 Max and a quarry may not have much in common.
But as attendees to Brady Heywood managing director Sean Brady’s keynote will discover, it is all about the bigger picture.
When disaster strikes, it can often seem like an isolated event. Something that went wrong in a singular moment and is isolated from the rest of the operations. Often, it’s easy to fixate on this moment and drill down into exactly what went wrong.
But, in the words of Mark Buchanan in his book Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen, it is worthwhile considering the world as a steep pile of sand, poised on the brink of instability, where small events can build up the sand pile and set off an avalanche.
And it was this theory that made Brady reconsider how he thinks about and conceptualises risk as a forensic engineer.
“I found that it was just groundbreaking that you could have systems failing in this complex way, which the sandpile model just so powerfully illustrates,” he told Quarry.
“For me, I was reading about a lot of failures, and it was a real lightbulb moment for me because it made me understand them differently.
“People think when you get big effects, like a fatality, or a stock market crash or the Boeing crashes, that the cause must also be proportionally big. But usually what we find is there’s this disconnect, and it’s all these small things together that produce big effects.”
Brady uses the example of the Boeing 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 to illustrate his point. The two incidents occurred between October 2018 and March 2019, which saw 346 people die in two similar crashes. While most would narrow in on whether the incidents were caused by isolated factors, Brady said the incidents show how small issues can build into larger conundrums.
“I think one of the important aspects to consider is how they ended up in this situation? And when we look at it, they made a range of decisions that ended with a single sensor crashing a plane,” he said.
“And the reason we got to a single sensor crashing a plane is that everything else that should have been there was not there to prevent it, and they had been systemically removed.”
But what do two aircraft disasters have to do with the quarrying sector? Quite a bit when it comes to preventing human tragedy in a complex working environment.
“Often in these environments, we can build these sand piles inside our organisation, and they turn around and bite us,” Brady said.
“They don’t have simple causes. Often, the initiating incident is blamed, but often the reason incidents like this happen is that the controls we thought were in place on the day to stop it were ineffective.
“It’s important to understand where your controls are weak and to do something about them before the failure happens.”
Brady, who authored the Brady Review, has an immense understanding of the mining and quarrying sectors. His report, which was commissioned by the Queensland Government’s Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy, looked into all of the fatal accidents in Queensland mines and quarries from 2000 to 2019. The final report carried eleven recommendations for the regulator and the sector and was tabled in the Queensland Parliament in February 2020.
While Brady does not think there has been a meaningful change in the sectors since the report was finalised, he believes there is a path forward if people reframe how they assess risk, using tools such as feedback loops. These tools effectively ask senior leaders in these operations to regularly consider the weaknesses in their controls and whether these measures are as effective as they think they are. By actively reviewing and considering the operational environment and the safety controls within it, the operation can avoid sandpiles from developing.
“If you’re not looking for sandpiles inside your organisation, the avalanche will come as a complete shock,” he said.
“You need to be aware of those sand piles; otherwise, they will get so steep, all they need is a simple trigger. So your job is to identify which sand piles are getting steep and get on top of them.”
Brady is looking forward to delivering his keynote speech at the IQA National Conference on the Gold Coast from October 6-8, 2026.
“I have had a long relationship with the IQA, and I’ve always enjoyed the conferences,” he said.
“I think from an industry perspective, it is critical from a health and safety point of view because everyone gets to chat and see what other people are doing well. The value you get out of getting together and sharing that knowledge is really valuable.”
Discounted rates for IQA members are available if they register now.
Join the IQA on the Gold Coast, 6-8 October 2026, for the IQA National Conference. •
For more information quarry.com.au
