In any system life-cycle, two major phases exist, namely system acquisition and operation (including maintenance). A distinction is made between acquisition and procurement, where acquisition includes system development and integration as specific engineering activities. In the development phase of a new system, conceptual design, preliminary design, and detail design phases follow in this order to define a complete system, after which the system is put into production and implemented in an operational environment-these activities chronologically define system acquisition in the context of this paper. It is not uncommon that differences exist between the risk management perspective during acquisition of a system and risk management perspective during operation, where nontechnical aspects are often ignored during acquisition, but are then encountered and found to be problematic during operation (Leveson, 2012). These differences also exist in the mining industry.This research was initiated when a discontinuity was observed between engineering (mainly responsible for acquisition) and mining operations dependent on electronic equipment for safe operations. It was thus necessary to investigate and reduce the magnitude of this discontinuity as it could lead to loss of human lives. The two cultures within these two sections of the same organization can never be fully harmonized, as an acquisition culture usually focuses on the management of projects with clear start and end dates, while an operations culture is essentially focused on the management of events that are cyclic in nature.A generic framework for the assessment and management of risk, which we will call activity-based risk (ABR), was developed to provide an abstract view of equipment and its relation to operational risk with a distinctly pragmatic focus. The aim of the ABR acquisition process model is to assist risk analysts, engineers, and operations managers by providing a full life-cycle view of risk during acquisition when the most important system and operational design decisions must be made.There are different ways to demonstrate the value of risk modelling. The ABR approach provides decision support information in the form of relativistic risk comparisons to enable well-informed trade-off studies. A relativistic approach allows the engineer to decide on functionality and resource definitions in the development phase (a function-focused approach), and allows the manager to understand the impact of resource selection (a resource-focused approach) on the risk of a system in operation.Activity-based risk management for the acquisition of electronic mine safety equipment by G.P.R. van der Merwe*, J.E.W. Holm † , and A.J. Hofmann † A new approach is proposed to perform relativistic comparisons between alternative operational risk management solutions by taking into account the impact of each operational activity on overall system performance. A specific case study, to which this new approach is applied, involves the deployment of safety systems in undergr...