This series discusses risk assessment as it is practiced in machinery safety. Other forms of risk assessment vary and may apply to similar situations. The approaches discussed here are those discussed in the International, Canadian, European and US standards for safety of machnery.
ISO has withdrawn three long-standing basic machinery safety standards used internationally and in the EU and replaced them with a single combined document. If you design, build or integrate machinery for sale internationally or within the EU, this new standard needs to be on your BUY list!
The events unfolding at Japan’s Fukushima Dai Ichi Nuclear Power plant are a case study in ways that the risk assessment process can fail or be abused. In an article published on Bloomberg.com, Jason Clenfield itemizes decades of fraud and failures in engineering and administration that have led to the catastrophic failure of four of six […]
I’m often asked what seems like a pretty simple question: “Why do we need to do a risk assessment?” There are a lot of good reasons to do risk assessments, but ultimately, the purpose of risk assessment is best summed up in this quotation: “Risk assessments, except in the simplest of circumstances, are not designed for making judgements, […]