After the preparation of methodology for a job or an activity, the risk assessment and job safety & environmental analysis shall also be prepared as well. You may want to learn about “Job Safety and Environmental Analysis & Risk Assessment” prior to this 6 steps.
You might ask why we need to make a risk assessment and job safety analysis for a job. It is really very important in order to avoid incidents and or accidents that may cause injury and the most worse is the fatality in your ongoing project.
Now, in order for us to learn how to prepare a JSEA and RA here are the 6 steps on how to prepare it.
1. Identify the Procedure of a Job
What you will do is to break the jobs into steps. The steps will be arranged in an orderly manner, those job that has potential hazards. Let me show you the example. The job is “Plastering Works” so, below are the steps:
a. Site communication of safety instructions
b. Delivery of plaster materials to lay down in store via truck
c. Delivery of cement to the site via telehandler
d. Shifting of plaster accessories to work area via telehandler
e. Cement bag – Lifting etc…
You might ask, what is the potential hazards of “site communication?” This is the understanding of operatives working on site of safety instructions, safety warnings etc. You will find later how we will control the hazards and reduce the risk associated with this step.
2. Identify Potential Safety and Environmental Hazards
The hint of this step is to ask yourself “What could go wrong?”
If there is a “Cause” and therefore there will be an “Effect”. The “Cause and Effect Diagram” was developed by Ishikawa, now, lets’ define the causes that could create a severe risk.
Ishikawa diagrams are causal diagrams created by Kaoru Ishikawa that show the causes of a specific event. Common uses of the Ishikawa diagram are product design and quality defect prevention to identify potential factors causing an overall effect.
Kaoru Ishikawa was a Japanese organizational theorist, Professor at the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Tokyo, noted for his quality management innovations. Wikipedia
Here is the example of “what could go wrong” for the step a, it might be “People not understanding the Safety controls and work instruction.” So, there is really a big hazard on this that’s why we need to properly evaluate.
3. Calculation of Risk Ratings
First, you have to know the “Probability” and “Consequence” what are its contents. Let me give you first the meaning of the two words.
Probability is the quality or state of being probable; the extent to which something is likely to happen.
Consequence is something that happens as a result of a particular action or set of conditions.
The probability has 5 different rates values which are:
• 5 = Almost Certain,
• 4 = Probable,
• 3 = Moderate,
• 2 = Unlikely and
• 1 = Rare.
And the Consequence has also 5 different rates value which are:
• 5 = Death,
• 4 = Severe,
• 3 = Major,
•2 = Minor and
• 1 = insignificant.
Before the calculation of risk ratings, you must establish first the conditions.
1 – 6 Acceptable, 6 – 12 Acceptable with strict controls measures & 12 – 25 Unacceptable
You can calculate now the risk rating, let’s take the example of the first step “site communication of safety instructions” because persons involve might not understand the Safety controls and work instruction, so the hazard is there, therefore, the probability of getting an incident or accident is high. So, you are going to rate as 4 = Probable and the consequence will be 3 = Major. So, the equation will be P x C = T inserting the values we get 4 x 3 = 12 which is really Unacceptable base from the conditions above.
4. Control Measures
So, if the risk rating is unacceptable the “control measures” shall then be identified in order to reduce the risk. You will imagine now to do this. I’m going to give you some examples.
a. All operatives to undergo site induction
b. All operatives to attend a pre-start briefing at the start of each shift explaining the day work and specific safety controls.
In the first control measure, it is the way to let people or operatives know site communications because during the induction training the instructor will demonstrate all that the operatives needs to do, to wear, to follow etc. Similar to the second control measure, all operatives are require to attend the pre-start briefing.
Then in the control measures we established, from there we were able to reduce the risk and then we have to do the following step.
5. Determine the Residual Risk Rating
After establishing the control measure and being able to reduce the risk. The next step is to evaluate further if the established control measure still has potential hazards, and this is called “residual risk.” You have to get the rating of the residual risk. Now, the probability would be P = 1 and the C = 3 inserting in the equation (P x C = T), therefore 1 x 3 = 3, comparing to the conditions it is fall in the “Acceptable” category.
6. Identifying the Person Responsible
Now, the last is to determine the persons responsible for the application on site. A person responsible is the one who is managing the works at the site. Then it could be the Site Engineer, the Supervisor, the Foreman etc.
If you are able to reduce the risk to an Acceptable level you can then submit to the Consultant for approval prior to application of the JSEA and RA to the construction site.
Preparation of Job Safety & Environmental Analysis and Risk Assessment could be easily done if you have a checklist that could be used or someone that could walk through in preparing your JSEA and RA.
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