Key Points
My top three key points from these reading are:
- i) Emphasis on management leadership
- ii) Employee involvement and safety design reviews
iii) Risk assessment
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Reflection
Risk assessment (RA) is an important element for safety, as it makes an integral part of a better occupational health and security organization plan. It is relevant to awareness creation about the possible and identified hazards and risks. At the workplace, RA provides the required path for the identification of the individuals, including employees, contractors, cleaners, the public or the visitors who may be subjected to a risk. RA is significant when it comes to the determination of whether the current control measures are enough or if they need to be supplied more.
RA is more important when it comes to matters of preventing injuries or illnesses when undertaken at the designing as well as the planning stage. To deal with risks, it is always recommended that the involved personnel make prioritization and control of hazards; RA enables prioritizing hazards and taking the recommended control measures. Finally, RA is important in removing hazards and minimizing its risk levels through the addition of precautions and other relevant control measures, thereby establishing a safer and healthier professional environment.
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Application
A good example of a particular application of RA is at the BT Texas City Refinery, where the Anatomy of Disaster was conducted after the huge explosion that caused 15 lives and injured other 180. As reported by Don Holmstrom, the CSB Supervisory Investigator, the explosion resulted from negligence and failure to undertake the set safety procedures in the firm. The firm’s risk monitoring supervisor had arrived late at the working station and received no briefings from the operators who were changing shifts. The major mistake occured when he left the plant to attend for an urgent family medical issue without leaving any experienced supervisor to work on the same.
At 1:20 pm March 23rd, 2005, the firm experienced an explosion that resulted from the outflow of the high flammable hydrocarbon, gasoline, from the refinery tunnels causing an explosion that covered a wide area. This caused the company billions of dollars to cater for victim compensation and to restrict of the firm to renew and restart its operation. It spent money on gaining back the lost reputation.
According to the CSB Chairperson 2002-2007, Caroline W. Merritt, the RA would be made applicable by examining the wide ranges of the entire safety system in the gasoline manufacturing and processing plant. In this case, they had to look into the communication between the different operators to ensure that an effective flow of continuous and updated information existed. In this case, in conducting the RA, the management has to look at the warning signs of any possible catastrophic accident, as well as other minor things that result in other dangerous risks. This is because the experienced event resulted from a minor failure among the system operators at the plant.
For the purpose of effective RA, the concerned personnel undertake a close analysis of the effectiveness of the distillation and the separation of the gasoline components. They have to analyze the level of the hydrocarbon liquid above the footmark since this is a possible cause of risk. Above the set limit, the gasoline overflows to other chimneys increasing the pressure, leakages, and external outbreaks.