Transcript A Simple Guide to Hazard Identification

A Simple Guide to
Hazard Identification
Bill Bircham
Safety, Quality & Environmental Manager
Amey Seco Track Renewals
Who should identify the hazards?
(1)
The Team….
…or the Individual?
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Who should identify the hazards?
(2)
• The Individual
– Negative Aspects
• Vast technical competence required
• Implementing Manager required to take ‘leap of
faith’ in individual
• Perpetuates ‘safety is the Safety Depts problem’
• Unlikely to be as comprehensive as team approach
therefore questionable sufficiency
• Output suffers from ‘Not invented here’ attitudes
• Personal perception may influence judgement
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Who should identify the hazards?
(3)
• The Individual
– Positive Aspects
• Likely to produce quicker results
• Less likely to be swayed by ‘peer pressure’
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Who should identify the hazards?
(4)
• The Team Approach
– Positive Aspects
• Knowledge required to assess is likely to be
available across the variety of positions
• Judgements and decisions can be made to satisfy
a variety of organisational interests
• Promotes consultation with employees
• Inclusion of Line Managers builds ownership of
the outcome
• More likely to reflect actual working practices
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Who should identify the hazards?
(5)
• The Team Approach
– Negative Aspects
• Committee approach can be too slow to react to
changes
• Team dynamics can affect outcome
• Resource hungry in terms of total hours
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Who should identify the hazards?
(6)
• Each situation is unique
• Each will require a different approach
• Each is dependant upon process complexity
Obvious low hazard or
simple process
Obvious high hazard or
complicated process
Increasing Expertise Required
Supervisor
Expert Team
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Team Membership
• Skill requirement must drive membership of
assessment teams
• understanding of assessment method in use
• knowledge of work processes being assessed
• understanding of interfaces, both internal and external
PLUS
• The authority to commit necessary resources
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Structure a brainstorm?
How?
• Brainstorming Rules
 Postpone and withhold your judgement of ideas.
 Encourage wild and exaggerated ideas.
 Quantity counts at this stage, not quality.
 Build on the ideas put forward by others.
 Every person and every idea has equal worth.
– By its very nature a brainstorming session
cannot be structured, but it can be ‘guided’.
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Soliciting Ideas
• define the problem area or the opportunity
area to create ideas for
• draw up a specific probortunity
(problem/opportunity) statement which
describes what you are trying to achieve
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Soliciting Ideas with
SCAMPER
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Substitute
Combine
Adapt
Modify
Put to other purposes
Eliminate
Reverse
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Brainstorm Ideas
How to kill them...
…and how to help them
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Brainstorm Ideas
Killing the weak ones!
• A good idea, but ..…
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–
–
–
–
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…people won't like it.
…it needs more study.
…let's make a survey first.
…against the company policy.
…the directors won't go for it.
…ahead of its time, people are not ready for it.
…let's sit on it a while.
– …we've never done it that way before. Has anyone else tried it
successfully?
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Brainstorm Ideas
Helping the good ones!
• Yes, ….
• …that's a good idea/point/comment.
• …great, let's try it.
• …what resources would we need to do it?
• …tell me more.
• …how can we make it work?
• …can you draw up a plan of action? What can I do to help this happen?
• …that sounds interesting, tell me more.
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Beating subjectivity with hazard
criteria
• Have the team define what hazard means to them.
• Explore various meanings
• discourage those that are ambiguous
• refine those that are succinct
• don’t be afraid to suggest
• agree and settle on one definition only
“A Hazard is something with the potential to cause harm
(this can be include substances or machines, methods
of work and other aspects of work organisation)”
MHSW Regs ACoP
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Invisible hazards, how to identify
what you cannot see.
• For each element of the
possible hazard,
consider :– Is there a source of
harm?
– Who or what could be
harmed?
– How could the harm
occur?
Hazard?
Location
Note that we are only
examining what could fail,
not how often it does, how
likely it will do so or the
consequences of the failure.
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Invisible hazards, how to identify
what you cannot see.
• Use a simple matrix to record the results
Who/what
Source of
Harmed?
Harm?
How Harm
Occurs?
Method
People
Location
• Any positive answer means a hazard exists
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Team hazard spotting
• Three main hazard types usually missed
– Undetectable to unaided eye, need active
searching
• look in, behind, under
• ask why and what
– Transient
• unsafe behavior, listen to ‘jokes’
– Latent
• contingent upon other events i.e. breakdown, fire
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New hazards,
what do they look like?
• Just like the old ones
– in different guises
• Two main causes of new hazards
– new process, people or location
– previously unknown factor becomes apparent
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New hazards,
How to spot them?
• The new process, people or location hazard.
Continual improvement
Initial Status
Review
Management
Review
OHS Policy
Planning
Checking and
corrective action
Implementation
and operation
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New hazards,
How to spot them?
• Previously unknown factor becomes apparent
hazard
– Increased coverage in trade press
– publication of consultation document
– approach by member of staff / public / customer /
supplier
– advice forthcoming from HSE / HMRI
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Simple Hazard Identification Tools
How effective are they?
• Several types of tool available
– Workplace inspections
• see what really happens
– Job safety survey
• see what is supposed to happen
– Safety Audits
• measure what happens against what should happen
– Accident / incident data analysis
• measure what went wrong
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Hazard Identification Tools
The professionals choice
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HAZAN & HAZOP
Fault Tree Analysis
Event Tree Analysis
Failure Mode Effect Analysis
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