Risk Management and Analysis Techniques

Dynamic Risk Assessments

• Workers in emergency services, trades, care, retail, and security use dynamic risk assessments
• These assessments are for rapidly changing situations

Formal Hazard Analysis

• Two types: inductive and deductive
• Inductive (bottom-up): future, hypothetical, based on experience (e.g., FEMA, FEMCA, FHA)
• Deductive (top-down): future behavior from premises (e.g., FTA, Fishbone, General to Specific)

Cost Types

• Tangible costs: easily seen, e.g., products, employee salaries, maintenance
• Intangible costs: indirect costs, later effects, e.g., risk

Risk Management

• Definition: reducing or eliminating adverse risk effects for an organization
• Risk homeostasis: comparing perceived and target risk levels, adjusting to minimize discrepancies
• System availability: an item's operable and committable state

Analysis Techniques

• Fault tree analysis: deductive, starts with a top-level event, determining causes
• No single method completely evaluates a product

Control Measures

• Examples include hazard avoidance, design changes to eliminate hazards, limiting exposure, providing personal protective equipment (PPE), and warning signals

Risk Management Process

• Key steps: hazard identification, assessment, control development, decision-making, implementation, supervision, evaluation
• Types of controls: educational, physical, avoidance

Insurance

• Reinsurance: primary and secondary insurer agreement to cover risks
• Retrocession: risk or insurance amount a company chooses not to retain

Human Factors Theory

• Accident causes categorized as overload, worker response, and activities (David Yates' theory)
• Front-line supervisors conduct incident investigations
• Accident/incident cause is human error and/or system failure (Petersen's theory)

Vicarious Liability

• Legal relationship for injury liability to a person not the cause of the act

Risk Communication

• Seven Cardinal Rules of Risk Communication (Covello and Allen 1988): accept, plan, listen, be honest, work with sources, meet needs of media, and speak with compassion

System Safety

• Fail-safe passive: equipment stops when fails, e.g., circuit breakers
• Fail-safe active: emergency systems continue functioning during failure, e.g., emergency lights
• Fail-safe operational: safety-prioritized design, e.g., feed water valve, copilot

Statistical Concepts

• Z-score: a score's position in a normal distribution; percentage of area under the curve
• T-test: comparing population means (typically with less than 30 samples)
• Chi square: measures "goodness of fit" between observed and expected frequencies; often used with frequency tables
• Standard deviation: measures data dispersion; 1SD, 2SD, 3SD encompass different percentages of the data around the mean

Poka Yoke

• Japanese term: mistake-proofing, inadvertent error prevention

Process Safety Management

• ANSI/AIHA Z10: standard for implementing OSH management systems to improve employee safety

Criteria for Controls

• Support: resources (personnel, equipment)
• Standards: clear, practical, specific guidance
• Training: knowledge and skills; adequate training to implement controls
• Leadership: competent managers and supervisors; competent for implementation
• Individual: independent, self-disciplined employees

Risk Categories

• Pure risk: uncontrollable; loss or no loss, no financial gain (e.g., fires, floods)
• Speculative risk: voluntary; potential profit or loss (e.g., gambling)

Safety and Health Programs

• Goal: prevent injuries, illnesses, and deaths; reduce financial hardship (reduce costs, safety/health, social responsibility, and productivity)
• Focus on proactive, process-management, ongoing improvement (evaluation)

Dynamic Risk Assessments

• Used by emergency, trade, care, retail, and security workers

Formal Hazard Analysis

• Methods: inductive (bottom-up) and deductive (top-down) analysis

Cost Classification

• Tangible costs: easily seen (e.g., products, labor)
• Intangible costs: difficult to see (e.g., risks)

Berlo's Model

• Source -- Message -- Channel -- Receiver

System Availability

• Degree of operability and committability of an item

Independent and Mutually Exclusive Events

• Independent: don't affect the probability of each other
• Mutually exclusive: cannot happen at the same time

Analysis Techniques

• Fault tree analysis: deductive, starting with a top-level event
• System hazard analysis: formal analysis of a system and its relationships, identification of hazards
• Common cause failure analysis: single events or causes common to multiple components
• Sneak circuit analysis: unintentional energy routes
• Preliminary hazard analysis: conducts initial risk evaluation

Failure Rate and Success Rate

• Failure rate: failures / attempts
• Success rate: successes / attempts

Human Factors Theory

• Classify accident causes into: overload, inappropriate worker response, inappropriate activity

Incident Investigation

• Front-line supervisors are responsible

Petersen's Accident/Incident Theory

• Human error or system failure causes accidents/incidents

Vicarious Liability

• Legal relationship where a person can be held liable for the actions of another

Risk Communication Rules

• Key rules in effective communication

Risk Calculation

• Formulas for calculating costs and benefits

Experience Modification Rate

• Rate less than 1 is considered very good; measures industry experience

Behavior-Based Safety Process

• Steps for implementing Behavior-Based Safety

Modern Management Theory

• Consequences must be positive or negative, immediate or future, certain or uncertain

ISO 19011 Principles

• Seven principles in auditing (e.g., integrity, due professional care)

Insurance

• Occurrence insurance (covers policy period incidents)
• Claims-made insurance (covers incidents when claim is reported)
• Reinsurance (between primary and secondary insurers)

Miscellaneous

• Acronyms (ASTM, ANSI, NFPA, IARC)

Risk Management and Controls

• Ranking departments by composite scores to allocate funds for greatest risk reduction
• ABCs of Behavior: Antecedent, Behavior, Consequence

Criteria for Controls

• Support for controls, adequate supplies
• Standards, adequate training
• Training, competent managers and supervisors
• Leadership

Risk Assessment

• Steps in risk assessment; identify hazards, decide on affected groups, assess them, record, and review results. (NIOSH, EPA)

Risk Assessment Applications

• Generic, specific, and dynamic risk assessments are used.
• Dynamic: continuous process of identifying hazards, assessing risk, and taking action.

Other Concepts

• Definitions of descriptive epidemiology, ASTM, ANSI, NFPA, IARC

Explore various methods and concepts in dynamic risk assessments, formal hazard analysis, cost types, and overall risk management strategies. This quiz covers essential techniques such as fault tree analysis and the principles of risk homeostasis. Test your understanding of these critical topics in organizational safety.