Prevention through Design The Standard

Hazards and risks are most effectively and economically avoided, eliminated, or controlled in the design and redesign processes. 

Hazard analysis is the most important safety process in that, if that fails, all other processes are likely to be ineffective (Johnson, 1980, 245). 

Risk assessment should be the cornerstone of an operational risk management system. 

On the Practice of Safety, Fourth Edition. Fred A. Manuele. 

The entirety of purpose of those responsible for safety, regardless of their titles, is to manage their endeavors with respect to hazards so that the risks deriving from those hazards are acceptable. 

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When the outcome of a risk assessment indicates that risks are not at an acceptable level, reductions would be achieved through the application of a hierarchy of controls, which is discussed in Chapter 18, Prevention through Design The Standard. ... 

Chapter 20, Applied Ergonomics Significance and Opportunity, and Chapter 21, On Quality Management and the Practice of Safety, address the design, engineering, and risk assessment aspects that are fundamental in those endeavors. Comments are included in Chapter 18, Prevention through Design The Standard, on the extensive involvement at the National Institute for Safety and Health (NIOSH) on its PtD initiative. 

Donna S. Heidel is the Prevention though Design Coordinator at NIOSH. The Z590.3 standard would not exist if personnel at NIOSH had not concluded that one of its goals was to have a Prevention through Design (PtD) standard. Heidel was asked to provide a summary... 

The NIOSH symposium followed an earlier conference in 1998 that led to a book on the topic. In 2011, the American Society of Safety Engineers published a standard on Prevention through Design. " ASSE and NIOSH conducted a symposium on the issue in 2011. ... 

In the previously mentioned standard on prevention through design (ANSI/ASSE, 2011), these definitions of acceptable risk and ALARP... 

Although the prevention through design standard applies to occupational hazards and risks, the previously given definitions of acceptable risk and ALARP apply to all hazards-related exposures (fire protection, transportation safety, environmental safety, etc.). 

Expanding on Lowrance and Rowe, the following definition of risk relates more precisely to the work of the many safety professionals who have responsibilities for environmental matters in addition to occupational safety and health. It appears in the previously mention prevention through design (ANSI/ASSE, 2011) standard. 

On September 1,20011, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved the standard ANSI/ASSE Z590.3— 2011. Prevention through Design Guidelines for Addressing Occupational Hazards and Risks in the Design and Redesign Processes. It must be understood that activities at NIOSH are limited to occupational safety and health. 

In the standard, the definition of Prevention through Design is work-related and identical with that in the NIOSH literature. 

In ANSI/ASSE Z590.3—2011, the Prevention through Design standard, Addendum G comments on only eight hazard analysis and risk assessment techniques, intentionally. They are Preliminary Hazard Analysis, What-If Analysis, Checklist Analysis, What-If Checklist Analysis, Hazard and Operability Analysis, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis, Fault Tree Analysis, and Management Oversight and Risk Tree (MORT). It was also said in Z590.3 that ... 

Section 7 in ANSI/ASSE Z590.3 is devoted to the hazard analysis and risk assessment process. It is the core of the Prevention through Design standard. The following process outline is a recent work, having been approved by the American National Standards Institute on September 1,2011. In the standard, the narrative for each subject is extensive and is recommended reading. 

Because of the adoption in 2011 of an American National Standard on Prevention through Design, revisions were made in the chapters Safety Professionals and the Design Process and Guidelines ... 

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