ISO has withdrawn three long-standing basic machinery safety standards used internationally and in the EU and replaced them with a single combined document.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!
Read MoreHow Risk Assessment Fails
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…
Read MoreThe purpose of risk assessment
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,…
The Problem with Probability
Risk Factors When risk is analyzed, at least in the industrial sector, we usually follow a process defined in ISO 12100. This approach defines two broad parameters, severity and probability, and then further subdivides probability into sub-parameters that are helpful for analyzing machinery hazards. This post explores the difficulty with assessing the probability parameter. If you’re interested…
Read MoreWhat did TEPCO know about Fukushima before 11-Mar-11?
I recently had a colleague point out an interesting paper published in the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” about the level of knowledge that existed between the start of construction of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant and the devastating tsunami of 11-Mar-11. If you are interested in knowing more, I highly recommend this paper. The full text…
How Risk Assessment Fails — Again. This time at DuPont.
A recent report released by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) looks at a series of accidents that occurred over a 33-hour period on January 22 and 23, 2010 at the DuPont Corporation’s Belle, West Virginia, chemical manufacturing plant. Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 – 2014Acknowledgements: US Chemical Safety Board for excerpts more…Some Rights ReservedOriginal content here is published under these license terms: X License Type:Non-commercial, Attribution,…
Scoring Severity of Injury – Hidden Probabilities
I’ve been thinking a lot about risk scoring tools and the algorithms that we use. One of the key elements in risk is the Severity of Injury. There are hidden probabilities attached to the Severity of Injury scores that are assigned that are not discussed clearly in any of the risk assessment standards that are commonly…
Read MoreThe Probability Problem
In Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), risk is a function of severity of injury and the probability of the injury occurring. Understanding the severity portion is usually fairly easy, although advanced technologies, like lasers for instance, take advanced hazard analysis methods to assess correctly. Probability, on the other hand, is a challenge. Mathematically, probability calculations go from…
Read MoreUnderstanding Risk Assessment
When people discuss ‘Risk’ there are a lot of different assumptions made about what that means. For me, the study of risk and risk assessment techniques started in 1995. As a technologist and controls designer, I had to somehow wrap my head around the whole concept in ways I’d never considered. If you’re trying to figure out risk…