Assessment techniques

The models reviewed at the beginning of this chapter set an overall framework for managing health and safety issues. Once the system is established there is a requirement for it to be assessed. The role of an assessor can vary. 

But tiiere are weaknesses. Even an enterprise which, by any objective standards, is good in terms of health and safety performance may still be given a list of non-conformances. Also the items listed in successive assessments become of increasingly less importance, even trivial, and may reflect the assessor s opinion rather than a requirement of a regulation or internal standard. 

A t5qjical response to a third party health and safety assessment is to see it as a target to be aimed for and to do just sufficient to satisfy the assessment. This response can prevail where managers fail to embrace healtii and safety as central to their fxmction. 

Assessments may be undertaken once or twice a year and may follow a sampling technique whereby a few specific areas are examined in depth and conclusions are drawn which can be extrapolated to cover the whole organisation. An assessment may seem like an examination where the result is always can do better Whilst assessments are necessary and can be beneficial to an organisation they are often approached with apprehension because they are seen as punitive where the options lie between being beaten with a big stick and beaten with a small one. 

The questions are designed to be straightforward and easily understood by everyone. This makes it possible for any employee or a small group of employees to monitor the performance of the system. 

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Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, Biitterworths, Boston, 1980. World Bank, Manual of Industrial Hazar d Assessment Techniques, Office of Environmental and Scientific Affairs, World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1985. 

Manual of Industrial Hazard Assessment Techniques, The World Bank, October 1985. 

Exposure assessment techniques now attempt to include as many as possible of the locations in which individuals now spend time. The concept involves identification of microenvironments which are important for potential exposure. For example, exposure to CO would include time spent in commuting, parking garages, in residences with gas stoves, as well as time spent outdoors. This approach classifies time spent in these microenvironments and the typical concentrations of CO in these locations. 

The what if/checklist is a broadly based hazard assessment technique that combines the creative thinking of a selected team of specialists with the methodical focus of a prepared checklist. The result is a comprehensive hazard analysis that is useful in training operating personnel on the hazards of the particular operation. 

Using formalized risk assessment techniques for industrial ventilation projects may complicate the issue more than necessary. The work environment and its exposure conditions are the focus. However, when evaluating new technology, including waste management, the risk assessment approach may be valuable. 

Process risk management Industrial hygiene risks should be periodically reviewed as are process safety risks. Some of the process hazard assessment techniques used for PSM can be expanded to include consideration of industrial hygiene issues... 

This application is similar to evaluation except that it may be performed as part of an overall qualitative or quantitative risk assessment. In the latter case, quantitative assessment techniques such as those described in Chapter 5 may be applied. 

Exposure assessments lUiiy consider past, present, and future exposures, using varying assessment techniques for each pliase... 

By using risk assessment techniques to determine the exposure of the property, it is possible to determine the appropriate standard of security for a risk. The following simple example will clarify this point. 

The development of soil corrosivity assessment techniques has largely been due to the pipeline industry s requirements for better corrosion risk assessment and the reduction of pipeline failures. Corrosion in soil is a complex process and over the years several parameters have been identified as having a significant effect on the corrosion rate in a given soil. 

Most of the accepted corrosivity assessment techniques have been outline above. Some of the techniques are used widely, others are more controversial. However, it must be accepted that even with a combination of available techniques no corrosivity assessment survey will accurately predict the corrosion rate for metals in every soil. 

Table 2.20 Soil Corrosivity Assessment Technique from the German Gas and Water Works Engineers Association Standard (DVGW GW9)...

Although certain conditions very often lead to a particular type of attack, attempts to categorise soil corrosion in this way cannot be made on a general basis and most corrosivity assessment techniques categorise the soil as reacting to bare steel or iron in one of four ways ... 

The program quality assurance plan may need periodic or emergency revisions Ongoing review of the data should reveal whether any deficiencies are due to Inadequate performance of vendors or to defects In the quality assurance plan Defects In the plan could result from Inadequate quality assessment techniques If measured levels of contaminants were significantly different from anticipated levels, for example ... 

Although qualitative and quantitative risk assessment techniques differ in approach, they have some features in common. Regardless of the technique... 

All risk assessment techniques, whether qualitative or quantitative, require an estimate of frequency of event occurrence. This frequency, which is extremely site specific, can be influenced by many factors. 

This chapter provides general information for performing qualitative or quantitative risk assessments on buildings in process plants. For detailed guidance on risk assessment techniques, the user is referred to other CCPS books on this subject, including Reference 3, Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures, Second Edition, and Reference 4, Guidelines for Chemical Process Quantitative Risk Analysis. 

Where possible, it is preferable to demonstrate safety without the application of advanced risk assessment techniques such as QRA, which can be resource intensive, time consuming, and costly. The decision to proceed with QRA should be based on an estimate of the benefits to be derived from such a study. Management should evaluate the expected cost of improving safety against the cost of conducting a detailed QRA to determine if there is potential benefit to performing QRA. If the expected benefits of perform-... 

Mineral Oil Hydraulic Fluids and Polyalphaolefin Hydraulic Fluids. Very limited information is available concerning levels of these hydraulic fluids in environmental media. The only available study described concentrations at a spill site (Abdul et al. 1990). No other reports of mineral oil hydraulic fluid exposure levels in environmental media were found in the available literature. At NPL sites, it becomes difficult to decide which original products are associated with documentation of specific site contaminants. General research dealing with assessment techniques relevant to complex petroleum hydrocarbon mixtures would be helpful in deciding how to approach the environmental media exposure issues. 

Fenske, R.A. (1993) Dermal exposure assessment technique, Ann. Occup. Hygiene, 37(6) 687-706. 

Environments Assessement Techniques Applied to Exhalation, Air-Cleaning and Arctic Air, Dissertation, Lund University, Lund, Sweden (1984). 

The SENIC risk assessment technique has been modified to include the American Society of Anesthesiologists preoperative assessment score (Table 48-2). An American Society of Anesthesiologists score of 3 or above was associated with increased SSI risk. 

In this paper I have tried to show that measurement of health benefits attributable to TSCA is not feasible. I hope that in doing so I have not belabored the obvious. For new chemicals and for most existing chemicals, prospective evaluation of health benefits to be achieved by various exposure controls will have to be based on extrapolation from microbial and animal data. However, while such extrapolation may be useful in a qualitative sense, quantitative risk assessment techniques involve considerable uncertainty, and in any case have not been developed for chronic effects other than cancer. 

PROBLEMS IN APPLYING CONVENTIONAL ASSESSMENT TECHNIQUES TO AREA-SOURCES... 

The techniques used to establish the risks posed by pesticides are dynamic and evolving. The passage of the FQPA in 1996 paved the way for the development of sophisticated computational models for assessing pesticide exposure, and future refinement of such models is anticipated. Such advancements in pesticide risk assessment techniques should be applicable to the risk assessment of other chemicals in foods and in the environment. 

Objects in the vicinity of an explosion can often serve as useful post-blast witnesses. Thus for large explosions damage to structural elements of buildings, street furniture, motor vehicles, and glazing can all prove informative. A number of authors have published studies that provide guidance on both damage assessment techniques and interpretation of the data [2-7]. 

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