SAFETY ASSESSMENT-
THE APPROACH
Abstract
Is your
safety assessment- like it should be? Does it perform so in order to
eliminate/mitigate correspondingly the risk at the workplace? Is it
sufficiently simple to be implemented and performed by people with a limited
technical knowledge regarding your enterprise? Is it sufficient complex in
order to catch the main features that are important in order to preserve safety
and health at the workplace?
Our
research- started in 2011 and aided by the participation in two FP7 research
programs was centred towards the improvement of safety assessment from the
following points of view:
- To make it more simple to implement, to be performed
and also more unobtrusive;
- To make it more efficient- so that a safety
assessment for a process enterprise of more than 1500 workers should be finished
in 3-5 days.
- To make it more objective and reliable. Any data
collection that is not based on measurements has a more or less degree of
subjectivity. Is the work hard? Are the work conditions not proper? These
are some very subjective questions from former safety assessment
checklists;
- To make the results utile, disseminable and ready to
be used as periodically lesson learned for the employees. Do we need lessons
to be learned on the same subject? We need because the capacity of
forgetting bad things is enormous and as Trevor Kletz said once ”the
causes of accidents are repeating again and again);
SAFETY ASSESSMENT-
THE THING
The
Safety Assessment must be predictive, comprehensive and systematic.
A
Safety Assessment is somehow similar with the military observation on an enemy
fortification. The scouts are identifying the position of armament, the number
of troops that are kept in the fortification, the path towards that
fortification; a safety assessor (auditor) should identify and assess the
safety aspects regarding the facility, employees and work equipment.
A
comprehensive Safety Assessment must:
• cover
all hazards, potential major incidents and possible consequences;
•
address all of the aspects of risk for each hazard and incident (nature,
likelihood etc.)
• cover
all areas and phases of operation of the assessed workplace/facility including
start-up, shutdown etc.
A
systematic Safety Assessment must employ a logical, transparent and
reproducible process which enables the assessor to understand the existing
history of incidents, compare the range of incidents and identify which are the
most important contributors to the overall risk profile of the facility.
The
following factors lead to a successful Safety Assessment:
• The
Safety Assessment should be workable and relevant to the workplace/facility.
• The
necessary knowledge should be assured. If the auditor is not familiar with the
facility- the usage of facility experts would be required.
• The obtained
significant results information is provided to all the employees from the workplace
that requires it to work safely.
•
Consultation before assessment with the employees occurs- involving them
actively in the assessment process.
•
Uncertainties are explicitly identified and reduced to an acceptable level.
• All
methods, results, assumptions and data are documented.
• Risk
control measures and their effects on risk are explicitly addressed.
• The
Safety Assessment is used as a basis for adopting risk control measures,
including improvements to the Safety Management System and emergency planning.
• The
Safety Assessment is regularly maintained and used as a ‘live’ document.
The
auditor team would assess- at the first sight- what could be wrong regarding
safety for the workplace that is been audited. This assessment should be done
systematically, considering all the risks that are really acting at the
workplace and also their interaction.
On the
other side, the assessment team could
search for specific causes of a possible unexpected event- considering
directly the profile of the workplace and what could went wrong.
Safety
Assessment had three distinct periods:
A.
Preparation for the assessment
B. the
Assessment itself
C.Analysis
of the results and development of the improvement plan.
A.PREPARATION FOR ASSESSMENT
Most of
the safety laws in place are requiring a periodic safety assessment. Sometimes,
the facility management could decide a safety assessment for various reasons:
an increasing number of incidents, problems with the production or the quality
of the products, social unrest, etc.
The
phase of preparation for assessment is very important because a well prepared
assessment means good results.
Before
starting everything, the management should revise its resources and also its
policy regarding the management of change. Perhaps that the result of the safety
assessment would involve the allocation of a huge amount of resources- needed
to improve the safety. Is management willing to invest these resources? Also,
the assessment generally involves change. If the change is not well seen by the
management- here could be a problem. Figure shows a schema for the preparation
phase.
Figure 1. The preparation
of assessment
From the figure we could see that every
safety assessment should start from a need. This need could be legal or could
be just the employees and management need for more safety. The management
should identify the needs and proceed accordingly.
Once established the need- there should be
fixed:
-the
objectives followed by the safety assessment: such an objective could be
”perform the yearly safety assessment for facility X” or ”identify the causes
of the incidents occurring in facility Y- incidents that costs us more than
50.000 Euro last year”. The objectives should be defined as clear as possible,
considering that they are at the base of the assessment process.
-the
areas in which the safety assessment will be made: those areas (and their
border) should be fixed very explicitly- in order to have a clear assessment
zone. Vague fixed areas could lead to unwanted discussions and other problems.
The
rules of the”game” should be established in this step. If there is an external
assessor- with his own checklists- these checklists should be validated by the
management team. If there should be developed internal checklists- and
assessment procedures- these should be correspondingly defined and well
documented. If there are such procedures- these should be tailored with the
external requests. There is no reason to define an internal risk level if this
risk level could not be compared with other assessments.
B.ASSESSMENT
The
specific knowledge map for the main safety assessment activities is shown in
the next figure.
Figure 2. The
knowledge map
The
Knowledge Map diagram can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlink
https://www.inforapid.org/userupload1/diagram.php?n=553a4c1569273d40f1391829f78191929e7e234be0658
The
first approach is shown in the figure 3.
Figure 3. Classic safety assessment approach
Another
approach could start from what is obvious regarding the non-safety, identifying
then the main problem(s) that could occur and analysing the root causes of this
problem(s). Finally, a prevention plan could be developed having a relative
referential of the importance of the problems and implicit of the causes that
are determining these problems.
This
approach is presented in the figure 4.
Figure 4. An
improved safety approach
In
using the second approach, the next form for global data collecting is useful.
Table 1. Safety assessment form nr. 1
|
SAF 1-SAFETY ASSESSMENT FORM no. 1
|
|
WORKPLACE IDENTIFICATION
|
Facility:
Location:
Address:
|
Team of assessors
(auditors)
Main(name
and identification):
A1 :
(name and identification):
A2:(name
and identification):
Contact
information (tel, e-mail, etc.):
|
Date
of assessment:
|
|
IDENTIFIABLE
RISKS
|
Location
|
Type
of the risk
|
Name
of the risk
|
Main
Causes
|
Main
Consequences of the risk
|
|
|
Physical
|
|
|
|
|
Chemical
|
|
Environment
|
|
Others
(please mention)
|
|
MAIN PROBLEMS
|
Description
of the problem
|
Root
cause 1
|
Root
cause 2
|
Root
cause 3
|
Possible
consequences
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
CONNECTED PROBLEMS
|
Description
of the problem
|
Root
cause 1
|
Root
cause 2
|
Root
cause 3
|
Possible
consequences
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Here we
could see that the usage of the root causes analysis could be helpful. Root
cause analysis (RCA) is one of the simplest and more efficient methods of
problem solving used for identifying the root causes of faults or problems. A
factor is considered a root cause if removal thereof from the problem
fault-sequence prevents the final undesirable event from recurring; whereas a
causal factor is one that affects an event's outcome, but is not a root cause.
Though removing a causal factor can benefit an outcome, it does not prevent its
recurrence within certainty. Instead of the system with 5 root causes we have
chosen a simpler solution with three root causes that could be more easily implemented.
Also, in this kind of study- we have considered that a root cause could not
always be immediately removed- but it could be mitigated.
Table
shows an investigation form that would focus on main problems.
Table 2 SAF 2 investigation form
|
SAF 2-SAFETY ASSESSMENT FORM no. 2 (in
connexion with SAF 1)
|
|
Main problem no.
|
Description of main problem
|
Elements of main problem
|
Root cause 1
|
Root cause 2
|
Root cause 3
|
Consequences
|
|
|
|
Work
area
|
|
|
|
|
|
Equipment
and tools
|
|
|
|
|
|
Human
Factor
|
|
|
|
|
|
Organisation
and management
|
|
|
|
|
An
example of the data collection using this form is given below.
Table 3 Example of SAF 2 completion
|
SAF 2-SAFETY
ASSESSMENT FORM no. 2 (in connexion with SAF 1)
|
|
No.
|
Description of main problem
|
Elements of main problem
|
Root cause 1
|
Root cause 2
|
Root cause 3
|
Consequences
|
|
1
|
At
the maintenance workshop there are permanent incidents involving employees slipping
over
|
Work
area
|
The
floor is always wet and greasy
|
There
is no attention in transporting machineries that are leaking oil to and from
the maintenance area
|
The
employees from the maintenance workplace are not cleaning frequently and are
not degreasing
|
Employees
are slipping and could injure themselves.
|
|
Equipment
and tools
|
Equipment
transported in the maintenance area is not checked upon leaking oil parts.
|
There
is no transporter that should isolate the equipment from the floor
|
Maintenance
workers are not checking and closing the oil and liquid alimentation points
and are not emptying the reservoirs of machines and equipment’s transported
to maintenance.
|
The
majority of equipment’s transported towards the maintenance workshop are
leaking oil and various other processing liquids.
|
|
Human
Factor
|
Insufficient
attention to the greasy floor
|
Workers
do not have work shoes that are not slippery
|
A lot
of employees that have no tasks to do at the maintenance workshop are however
there – on a regular basis- being send by supervisors or line management to
check if their equipment’s are ready
|
The
path towards maintenance workshop is circulated by too many employees-
visibility is scarce, maintenance of the floor is inefficient and accidents
could occur frequently.
|
|
Organisation
|
There
are no signs regarding wet and slippery floor
|
The
supervisors are not obliging maintenance workers to comply regarding the
cleaning of the floor
|
There
is no periodic control regarding the state of the walking surfaces to and
from maintenance
|
No
one cares if the management is not careful.
|
After
filling up SAF 1- on the basis of SAF2- a comprehensive list of risks should
result- as a result of the safety assessment process.
For
each risk we would give an importance code- we are considering that this
importance code is more significant that the probability/gravity/exposure
assessment- because:
- Generally, the probability of the apparition of a
specific risk is guessed- without a history that is learned. Large companies
(like the former Imperial Chemical Industries) have such a history- and
perhaps they are disseminating it to their branches. Smaller companies are
generally guessing it.
- Gravity/severity is also a debatable notion.
Evidently that everything that could injure the worker should have
the correspondingly value- but we
can have occasional and incidental injuries- like cutting the hand in a
rough surface- and explosions or
fires.
We are using- for
this kind of assessment- a three value scale of the importance of risks.
This scale is shown
below
Table 4- Scale of risk
importance
|
Interpretation
|
Importance of identified risk -Value
|
|
This
risk should be eliminated immediately
before proceeding to work
|
3
|
|
This
risk should be eliminated/ mitigated ASAP. Plans should be made and be
implemented regarding this risk.
|
2
|
|
This
risk should be mitigated in time. The activity could function taking into
consideration this risk
|
1
|
The general risk
level of the enterprise is given by the ponderate media of the number of 3 and
2 type risks- in the case that such risks exists. If not, the risks assessed
with 1 are considered. In order to be able to compare different risk levels- a
reduction of the obtained value should be made towards a 1…5 risk scale
Table 5-Scale of global
risk level given by the assessment
|
Interpretation
|
Estimated risk level- Value
|
|
Immediate
measures should be taken at the enterprise/facility level in order to
eliminate the risks of importance 3.
|
5
|
|
Measures
should be taken ASAP to eliminate risks of importance 3 and to
eliminate/mitigate risks of importance 2.
|
4
|
|
Measures
should be taken ASAP to eliminate/mitigate risks of importance 2.
|
3
|
|
Risks
of importance 1 are numerous and it should be developed and implemented a
plan of mitigation for this kind of risks.
|
2
|
|
Insignificant
risks
|
1
|
