Question

Describe each of the following principles of hazard and risk management:

a. risk analysis

b. hazard identification procedure

c. hierarchy of control and its application

d. principles of risk assessment

e. examples of health and safety benchmarks

f. principles of safe design processes

Answer 1

Ans)a)Risk analysis is the process of identifying and analyzing potential issues that could negatively impact key business initiatives or critical projects in order to help organizations avoid or mitigate those risks.

b) Hazard identification is part of the process used to evaluate if any particular situation, item, thing, etc. may have the potential to cause harm. The term often used to describe the full process is risk assessment: Identify hazards and risk factors that have the potential to cause harm (hazard identification).

c) The hierarchy of control creates a systematic approach to managing safety in your workplace by providing a structure to select the most effective control measures to eliminate or reduce the risk of certain hazards that have been identified as being caused by the operations of the business.

d) A risk assessment is a vital element for health and safety management and its main objective is to determine the measures required to comply with statutory duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and associated regulations by reducing the level of incidents/accidents.

e) Benchmarking – a planned process by which an organisation compares its health and safety processes and performance with others to learn how to reduce accidents and ill health, improve compliance with health and safety law and/or cut compliance costs.

f )Five principles of safe design

• Principle 1: Persons with control—those who make decisions affecting the design of products, facilities or processes are able to promote health and safety at the source.
• Principle 2: Product lifecycle—safe design applies to every stage in the lifecycle from conception through to disposal. It involves eliminating hazards or minimising risks as early in the lifecycle as possible.
• Principle 3: Systematic risk management—apply hazard identification, risk assessment and risk control processes to achieve safe design.
• Principle 4: Safe design knowledge and capability—should be either demonstrated or acquired by those who control design.
• Principle 5: Information transfer—effective communication and documentation of design and risk control information amongst everyone involved in the phases of the lifecycle is essential for the safe design approach.