Risk control hierarchy

The management of risk is a strategic approach to health and safety that organisations must adopt in order to control the hazards that employees, contractors, community residents and others are exposed to. It requires more than just a focus on the hazard itself. The control of hazards requires organisational and administrative processes in order to be effective. Those processes need to be in place to influence the behaviours of directors, managers, supervisors and employees so that harm does not occur. They should also be bound together by a policy and their effectiveness established by measurement, review and audit. A structure to accommodate these processes is necessary if the risks from hazards are to be controlled. Its success is demonstrated when the hazard has been eliminated. Elimination is the first step in the risk control hierarchy. 

A risk control hierarchy is a structured approach whereby for each hazard a set of action options is considered. The action that should be adopted is the one that gives the greatest degree of protection, not only to the operator but also to others who may be exposed to the hazard. The options in order of decreasing effectiveness are ... 

Personal protection is the final option in the risk control hierarchy. This requires the issue to the exposed employee of equipment that will protect him only and may consist of a facemask, eye protection, safety shoes, bad weather clothing, etc. It must be seen as a last option after all the other options have been investigated and proved not feasible. The employee must be told of the hazards faced, be trained in the control measure in place and in the proper use of the equipment. Qiecks should be carried out periodically to ensure there is compliance with the rules associated with the use of protective equipment. The purchase of PPE may be a cheap option, but the infrastructure necessary to ensure that it is properly used and maintained may be onerous. 

The risk control hierarchy should be applied to every identified hazard. The risk control method chosen need not be just one of the options but can be a combination of two or more. Consideration should also be given to the ease of use of the chosen control method and to tiie ease witii which it can be defeated. Eor example, eliminating a hazard altogether is an option that nobody can defeat. By contrast, asking an employee to avoid harm by wearing a dust mask is a control measure tiiat is easy to defeat - it is simply taken off when conditions become xmbearably hot. 

The usefulness of the risk control hierarchy is enhanced when it is a part of a comprehensive risk management process, tiiat is, when it forms part of an established management process. 

Compliance with the Carcinogens Directive requires the employer to assess the risk of exposure, and the nature and degree of that risk. The hierarchy of control mechanisms, in descending order of preference, is ... 

Suitable risk control measures must be develqred and used. The hierarchy of control measures, from most to least preferred is ... 

Health and Safety Executive. Management of risk when planning work the right priorities. Head office for HSE is Merseyside, UK. http //www.hse.gov.uk/construction/lwit/assets/down-loads/hierarchy-risk-controls.pdf... 

Behavior-based safety places responsibilities on workers for which they may not be qualified. Although worker involvement is important, it has limitations and is not a substitute for technically competent health and safety experts reviewing both existing and future operations to insure that hazards are identified and controlled. Few workers have been trained in hazard identification, risk evaluation or methods of control (hierarchy) [p. 17]. 

The third step is identifying, analyzing, and implementing risk controls. Important here are the priorities for controls, listed in Table 3-2. This list is called the Hierarchy of Controls. ... 

The Department of Defense s Standard Practice for System Safety, MIL-STD-882, was originally issued in 1969. It was a seminal document at that time, and three revisions of it have been issued over the span of 31 years. This standard has had considerable influence on the development of risk assessment, risk elimination, and risk control concepts and methods. Much of the wording on risk assessments and hierarchies of control in safety standards and guidelines issued throughout the world is comparable to that in the various versions of MIL-STD-882. 

Hierarchy of risk control options and principles, and selection of countermeasures to provide a reduction in risk... 

When assessing the adequacy of existing controls or introducing new controls, a hierarchy of risk controls should be considered. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 Schedule 1 specifies the general principles of prevention which are set out in the European Council Directive. These principles are ... 

These principles are not exactly a hierarchy but must be considered alongside the usual hierarchy of risk control which is as follows ... 

The principles of prevention now enshrined in the Management of Health and Safety at Work (MHSW) Regulations 1999 need to be used jointly with the hierarchy of control methods which give the preferred order of approach to risk control. 

Principles of prevention to be applied The MHSW requires employers who are implementing risk control measures (referred to as preventive and protective measures) to follow the principles set out in the regulations. These principles are a hierarchy of risk control measures of the type described in Chapter 5. The hierarchy begins with avoiding risks and ends with giving appropriate instructions to employees . 

The following is a summary of the preferred hierarchy of risk control principles as outlined in the HSE publication HSG65 as they relate to general health and safety. 

Figure 6.2 The hierarchy of risk control measures 3.1 Elimination...

Fire risk control strategies, included in the fire risk assessment, will need to reflect the hierarchy of control... 

Control measures should be considered according to the hierarchy discussed in chapter 2 (elimination, substitution, engineering, administrative, behavior, and PPE). Control measures are not mutually exclusive, and several methods should be used in concert to control any hazard. Employ controls for higher-risk activities in addition to the control measures for lower-risk activities, e.g., if the risk activity is moderate, then both low-risk controls and moderate-risk controls must be used. 

FIGURE 5.1 Hierarchy of hazard controls for the management of risk. The hierarchy of controls model depicts strategies to reduce risk, with the most effective at the top and the least effective at the bottom. PPE refers to personal protective equipment. 

Chapter 9 describes a framework for the identification and quantification of human error in fishing vessel operation, following a brief review of human error assessment techniques. This framework ranks the impact of human error and further integrates the available risk control options into the analysis. The approach uses Analytical Hierarchy Processing (AHP) theory to rank the preference of each control option. The advantages of employing the AHP technique are discussed and the integration of such a technique within the FSA framework is described. 

Preliminary Risk Analysis of danger, evaluates them, establishes a hierarchy between them and makes deductions concerning risk control in a relatively exhaustive way process Applications in ultrasafe or very high-risk industries (space travel)... 

Information obtained from a JHA is useless unless hazard control measures recommended in the analysis are incorporated into the tasks. Managers should recognize that not all hazard controls are equal. Some are more effective than others at reducing the risk. A hierarchy of controls should be used as follows ... 

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