CHAPTER 4- HAZARD AND RISK IDENTIFICATION

1. Causes of accidents and risk

a. Incidents and accidents are caused either by unsafe
behaviors and/or unsafe conditions.
b. Unsafe behaviors are handled by occupational safety
and health programs.
c. Unsafe conditions are managed through process safety
programs
2. Domino effect
Lack of control > basic cause > immediate cause
>incident > people/property
3. Qualitative risk analysis
a. Process hazards analysis is the predictive identification
of hazards, their cause, consequence and the qualitative
estimation of likelihood and severity.

4. Process hazard analysis

a. Determine locations of potential safety problems.
b. Identify corrective measures to improve safety.
c. Preplan emergency actions to be taken if safety control
fails.
d. Process hazard analysis must address the following
i. The hazards of the process
ii. Identification of previous incidents with potential
for catastrophic consequences.
iii. Engineering and administrative controls applicable
to the hazards and their interrelationship.
iv. Consequences of failure of engineering and
administrative controls.
v. The need to promptly resolve PHA findings and
recommendations.

5. Process hazard checklist

Strengths
Is quick and simple to perform
and is easily understood.
Makes use of existing experience
and knowledge from previous
systems.
Helps check compliance with
standard practice and design
intention.
Ensures that known hazards are
fully explored.

Weakness
Does not provide a list of
initiating events.
May not be comprehensive and
does not encourage analyst to
consider new or unusual hazards.
Highly dependent on the quality
of the prepared checklist.
-

a) Checklist questions category

a. Causes of accidents
b. Process equipment
c. Human error
d. External events
e. Facility functions
6. Hazard survey
a. This can be as simple as an inventory of hazardous
materials, or it can be as detailed as the Dow indexes.
7. Job hazard analysis (JHA)
a. Step 1 prepare to conduct JHA
i. Review all the jobs in the workplace and make a
list of those jobs that might require JHA.
ii. Get employees involved.
iii. Look for hazards conditions and unsafe behaviors
from
1. MSDS
2. Experienced workers
3. Previous accident report
4. Equipment manual, etc.
iv. Conduct risk analysis
1. Risk = probability x severity
b. Step 2 list the steps of the task.
i. Nearly every task can be broken down into a
series of steps.
ii. Steps will increase the efficiency and effectiveness
c. Step 3- Describe the hazards in each step
d. Step 4- Develop prevention measures
i. Use hazard control methods to eliminate/ reduce
the hazards identified in step 3.
ii. Hazard control strategies
1. Elimination and substitution

e. Step
i.
ii.
f. Step
i.

a. Removing the source of excessive

temperatures, noise or pressures
b. Subtituting toxic chemicals with less
toxic or non-toxic chemicals
2. Engineering controls
a. Eliminating/ Reducing the hazard
b. Enclosing the hazard using enclosed
cabs, enclosures for noisy equipment.
c. Isolating the hazard with interlocks,
machine guards, blast shields, etc.
d. Removing or redirecting the hazard
(eg: exhaust ventilation)
3. Administrative controls
a. Developing new policies, procedures &
practices to reduce frequency/
duration of exposure
b. Using PPE as a safe work practice
c. Revising work schedules to reduce the
frequency/ duration of exposure
d. Monitoring the use of highly hazardous
materials
e. Buddy system, Alarms, Signs &
Warnings
4. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
5- Write safe job procedures
The safe job procedure is the final result of the JHA
process
Its an excellent document to use as a training
lesson plan
6- Improving JHA Process
Periodically review the JHA

CHAPTER 4b- CHRA

1. Assessment of all chemicals used in the workplace must be done
to identify, evaluate & control any health risk associated with
work activities.
2. As stated in the OSH Regulations 2000, assessment of health
risks arising from the use of chemicals at the work place is
mandatory.
3. CHRA is performed to provide guidelines for employers & safety
and health practitioners to assist them.
4. Purpose & Objectives
a. To identify the hazards posed by each chemical substance
b. To evaluate the degree of exposure of employees to the
chemicals
c. To evaluate the adequacy of existing control measures
d. To conclude on the significance of the health risk posed by
the chemicals

e. To recommend further appropriate control measures

5. Route of chemical exposures
a. Inhalation, skin absorption & ingestion
6. Risk Likelihood that a substance will cause adverse health
effects. The risk to health usually increases with severity of the
hazard, the amount used, & the duration and frequency of the
exposure
Risk = Hazard x Exposure
Risk rating (RR) = sqrt (Hazard rating x Exposure
rating)
RR = sqrt (HR x ER)
7. Steps in chemical health risk assessment
Step 1- Deciding the assessor
Step 2- Gather information about chemicals, work & work
practices
Step 3- Divide work units
Step 4- Determine the degree of hazards
Step 5- Evaluate exposure
Frequency of exposure (F)

Step
Step
Step
Step
Step

Duration of exposure (D)

Intensity / magnitude of exposure (M)

6- Assess the adequacy of control measures
7- Conclude the assessment
8- Identify actions to be taken
9- Reporting the assessment
10- Review assessment

Chapter 4c HAZOPS
Strengths of HAZOPS:
a) HAZOP is systematic and flexible.
b) Suitable to incorporate the general experience available.
c) Good identification of cause.
d) Use of keywords allow participation of whole group
e) Used to study large plant in a specific manner.
f) HAZOP identifies all significant deviations on the plant, all
major accidents should be identified.
Weakness of HAZOPS:
a) It tends to be very time consuming and be boring.
b) It tends to be hardware-oriented and process-oriented.
c) It tends to generate failures with insignificant consequences
and generate many failure events.
d) HAZOP does not identify all causes of deviations and omit
many scenarios.
e) It takes a little account of the probabilities of events or
consequences. The group generally let their collective
experiences decide whether deviations are meaningful.
f) HAZOP is poor where multiple-combination events can have
severe effects. It tends to assume defects of materials of
construction.