RISK ASSESSMENT IN THE ENGINEERING FIELD
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Introduction
Successful processing industries and manufacturers have taken upon themselves to find solutions that increase the productivity and throughput in their companies by ensuring that they minimize costs to the lowest possible. However, companies must ensure that at the same time they enhance the safety standards of the company to avoid potential health risks. Therefore, risk assessment and management is very crucial in any processing or manufacturing environment. Productivity of employees can only be maximized when the working environment is safe.
Importance of risk assessment in processing industries
Assessing the risk in a workplace of any business is important to improve the occupational safety (Hudáková, Míka & HOLLÁ, 2016). Therefore, to ensure safe operations and installations, risk assessment and management is very important. It is upon risk managers to understand and identify the factors that may in future set the business apart. Innovative processing solutions can be materialized and implemented if the practices from risk assessment are adopted. Many activities that are carried out at processing industries are always involving the use of hazardous chemicals and therefore leading to risk of major hazards. Incidents involving chemical containment loss may have huge consequences such as harming people or the environment around them. Therefore, risk in process industries activities is a huge possibility and may affect the people and the environment. Risk is the probability of a certain harm arising from certain activities. Risk occurs when someone or something is vulnerable to a hazardous condition or event. It is when the hazard is not available that we can say that there is no risk. To ensure the safety and health of everyone in processing industries risk assessment and management must be done. Automation technology in the processing industry has been one of the major development recently. Under high advanced technological processing environment, the safety factor becomes lower. Business leaders should therefore be keen to ensure that a proper risk assessment is done to build a hazard-free environment for their employees.
Risk assessment tools and techniques
Root cause analysis
Root cause analysis is a systematic process that can be used to identify embedded fundamental risks in a project. Root cause analysis is used when a problem has already occurred. It seeks to address the questions of its causes but not the symptoms. This can be applied when trying to assess what is the cause of the risk and how it can be prevented. Questions to be asked for this assessment tools include; why did the problem happen? And how did the problem happen? This tool is highly recommended because to be used for risk assessment because it helps identify causes of problems that may cause risk and how they can be prevented in future.
Risk register
This is a very important tool that can be used to track risks in a project. This tool is very simple, a spreadsheet is used or sometimes a project management software to list all the identified and potential risks. Basically, the risk register helps to identify and describe the risks in a workstation. A risk register will help to provide a platform where the risk potential impact and how to deal with the risk is given. Furthermore, the risk register will help to categorize the risk and therefore making it possible to prioritize on a risk that may have the biggest impact. The risk register is highly recommended because it will help in the prioritization of risk. Therefore it will be easier when planning on how to deal with the risks identified.
Probability and impact matrix
Impact or probability matrix is another tool that can be used in risk assessment. This tool is very essential when prioritizing on risk. It helps in determining which strategy will work the best without exhausting time and resources. Therefore, this tool will help to understand the impact of certain risk to the project itself. Risks are classified from the most likely to happen to the most rare to happen. The risks are then colored from low risk to high risk showing its priority to handle the risk. This tool is highly recommended for risk assessment because it will help in taking the immediate action on the risk that may bring a larger impact to the company.
Stakeholder identification
Not only does the immediate team invest for the success of the company but also the stakeholders. Ideally, stakeholders are organizations, groups or people that are outside the project that may be affected or may affect the plans of the company (Valentin, Naderpajouh & Abraham, 2018). Stakeholders will always be eager to learn about the various actions when running the company. Additionally, external support from the stakeholders will be very important in the success of various projects because of the influence they may have in project milestones. It is therefore important to engage stakeholders in risk assessment and management processes.
Stakeholder management borrows the concept of prioritization from risk assessments. Stakeholders should be prioritized by the impact on the company and by the interest of the company (Covello, Winterfeldt & Slovic, 2018). When identifying stakeholders, it is important to understand the organization’s political map. This is done by identifying the key influencers and decision makers in the company. Optimization of stakeholders by using organizational political mapping techniques analyzing various stakeholder interests and prioritizing stakeholders is very important when it comes to communication to the stakeholders. The various stakeholders involved in a processing industry are; employer, principal manager, occupier, manufacturer and supplier, and employee.
Employer
An employer should always protect the health and safety of their employees that are working in his organization as well as those that may be affected during the processing activities. The role of the employer is to:
- Ensure that that risk assessment for hazards are conducted and all the control measures for the risks are implemented.
- Make sure of the working environment safety.
- Make sure that work place activities such as plant operation, machinery operation and other activities are safe.
- Develop the systems that will be used in case of emergencies.
- Supervision of safety measures such as training and proper instruction.
Principal Manager
The principal manager as the individual in an organization that engages on behalf of the company in aspects such as labor supply and sometimes may work under contracted service. The role of the principal manager is to;
- Perform all the mandate that they are engaged to.
- Ensure that there is safety in terms of process, article, plant, equipment and machinery in the company.
Occupier
In work places such as factories, the occupier is the person who holds the registration certificate for the place. The occupier has control of the place, whether they own the place or not. The roles of an occupier are;
- Ensure that all machineries in the workplace are safe for the employees.
- The workplace is safe for both the employees and non-employees. High risk are properly guarded or restricted.
Manufacturer or supplier
As the supplier or manufacturer, it is your mandate to ensure that the hazardous substances and, machinery and equipment provided are safe for use. The role of the supplier or manufacturer are;
- Provide important information on how to safely use machinery and handle hazardous substances that may cause health hazards.
- Test and examine equipment and machinery to ascertain that they are safe to be used by the employees.
- Provide results on tests made on equipment hazardous substances and machinery.
Employee
The roles of employees are;
- Not to engage in activities that may be rendered unsafe or that may cause harm to yourself or others.
- Following the health system and safety measures procedures that has been placed in the workplace.
- Ensuring personal safety when working by use of personal protective equipment, which should not be misused or tempered with.
Stakeholders risk communication
Risk communication is an important and integral aspect in the risk assessment process. Risk communication typically is the process of communicating the risk assessment strategies to all the stakeholders in the organization (MacDiarmid & Pharo, 2013). The role of risk communication is to ensure that all the stakeholders have a clear understanding of the process and their roles in the risk management process.
Risk communication strategies
According to Tiwana and Keil, (2014) risks needs to be communicated clearly all through the project phases to ensure that stakeholder opinions and expectations are upheld. Communication of risks to stakeholders should be done skillfully to avoid unnecessary setbacks or problems arising from miscommunication. Unfortunately, risk communication is not just talking to the stakeholders, it is about involving stakeholders in project conversation and engaging them in how to achieve strategies during risk management. Some of the risk communication strategies include; involving a team, use of reporting and alerts and considering stakeholder location
- Involving a team
Risk management communication will need involving all project team members including those with expertise at risk assessment and management. The expert individuals will act as the team leaders and will give detailed and relevant information that will help to build realistic expectations from the stakeholders. By meeting these expectations, the project stakeholders will be able to understand the key aspects of the assessment and therefore supporting the project fully. By involving a team, the stakeholders will obtain the relevant information and their responsibilities in the risk management process.
- Using reporting and alerts
It is important to recognize that it is vital for stakeholders to get proper communication on how risk assessment or management will be done. Therefore, it is important that a regular flow of information to the stakeholders is provided for them so that they can always stay engaged. This ca be possible through regular reporting, submitting of analysis and sending of important alerts to the stakeholders. Alerts can be set when there is a potential risk and therefore informing the stakeholders on what they should know or do.
- Considering stakeholder location
Sometimes stakeholders are not located near the organization and therefore making it difficult to make communications. It is ideal to identify the stakeholder locations so that it can be easier in making of communications. Knowing stakeholder location is important when there is need in giving timely communication to the stakeholders.
References
Covello, V. T., Von Winterfeldt, D., & Slovic, P. (2018). Risk communication. In Carcinogen Risk Assessment (pp. 193-207). Springer, Boston, MA.
Hudáková, M., Míka, V., & HOLLÁ, T. (2016). Importance of Risk Assessment in Managers ́Decision-Making Process. International Journal of Social, Behavioral, Educational, Economic, Business and Industrial Engineering, 10(12), 3765-3770.
MacDiarmid, S. C., & Pharo, H. J. (2013). Risk analysis: assessment, management and communication. Revue scientifique et technique-office international des epizooties, 22(2), 397-408.
Sakurahara, T., Reihani, S., Kee, E., & Mohaghegh, Z. (2020). Global importance measure methodology for integrated probabilistic risk assessment. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part O: Journal of Risk and Reliability, 234(2), 377-396.
Tiwana, A., & Keil, M. (2014). The one-minute risk assessment tool. Communications of the ACM, 47(11), 73-77.
Valentin, V., Naderpajouh, N., & Abraham, D. M. (2018). Integrating the input of stakeholders in infrastructure risk assessment. Journal of Management in Engineering, 34(6), 04018042.