Hazard Identification

Hazard identification is a vital part of the workplace safety process.

We offer a Hazard Identification service for those employers who dont have the time,
expertise or knowledge to undertake and document the process.
We can simplify things for you with a package that identifies hazards, enters them in a
Hazard Register, assesses the level of risk they pose and suggests ways of controlling
them.
The basics of the Hazard Identification process are listed here for your information.

HAZARD ID PROCESS
Identification

Walk around your workplace

Identify actual and potential hazards

Ask yourself what if..?

List the hazards

Risk Assessment
Hazards are classified as Significant, Medium or Low risks

Significant Hazards Ask yourself Does this have the potential to kill or
permanently disable someone?

Medium Risk Hazards Ask yourself Does this have the potential to cause a
serious injury or illness that will temporarily disable someone?

Low Risk Hazards Ask Yourself Does this have the potential to cause a minor
injury that would not disable someone?

Control
Hazards must be controlled by Eliminating, Isolating or Minimising In this order

List the hazards in your Hazard Register

Decide whether they are Significant, Medium or Low risks and decide how you
will control them

The higher the risk, the more extensive the control measures need to be

Decide whether you can Eliminate, Isolate or Minimise the hazards and who will
be responsible to do this

Advise all staff of the hazards and what you are doing about them

Monitor
Hazards need to be monitored to ensure your control measures are effective.
Specify a timeframe to do this Daily, Weekly, Monthly etc.

New Hazards
Encourage the reporting of new hazards and apply the same process to them as they
arise.

What Is It?
Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis (HIRA) is a collective term that
encompasses all activities involved in identifying hazards and evaluating risk at
facilities, throughout their life cycle, to make certain that risks to employees, the
public, or the environment are consistently controlled within the organizations
risk tolerance. These studies typically address three main risk questions to a
level of detail commensurate with analysis objectives, life cycle stage, available
information, and resources.
The three main risk questions are:

Hazard What can go wrong?

Consequences How bad could it be?

Likelihood How often might it happen?

When answering these questions, the objective is to perform only the level of
analysis necessary to reach a decision, because insufficient analysis may lead to
poor decisions and excessive analysis wastes resources. A suite of tools is
available to accommodate varying analysis needs: (1) tools for simple hazard
identification or qualitative risk analysis include hazard and operability analysis
(HAZOP), what-if/checklist analysis, and failure modes and effects analysis
(FMEA), (2) tools for simple risk analysis include failure modes, effects, and
criticality analysis (FMECA) and layer of protection analysis (LOPA), and (3) tools
for detailed quantitative risk analysis include fault trees and event trees (Refs.
9.2, 9.3, 9.4). For example, some companies may judge the mere existence of an
explosion hazard to be an unacceptable risk, regardless of its likelihood. Others
may be willing to tolerate an explosion risk if proper codes and standards are
followed. Still others may be unwilling to accept an explosion risk unless it can be
shown that the expected frequency of explosions is less than 10-6/y. HIRA
encompasses the entire spectrum of risk analyses, from qualitative to
quantitative. A process hazard analysis (PHA) is a HIRA that meets specific
regulatory requirements in the U.S. Figure 9.1 illustrates the increasing rigor of
risk analyses possible as the scope of the study becomes more focused on
specific accident scenarios. Note that as risk studies become more focused and
detailed, the cost per scenario analyzed increases, but the overall cost may
decrease if only a few representative or bounding scenarios are analyzed.

Why Is It Important?
To manage risk, hazards must first be identified, and then the risks should be
evaluated and determined to be tolerable or not. The earlier in the life cycle that
effective risk analysis is performed, the more cost effective the future safe
operation of the process or activity is likely to be. The risk understanding
developed from these studies forms the basis for establishing most of the other
process safety management activities undertaken by the facility. An incorrect
perception of risk at any point could lead to either inefficient use of limited
resources or unknowing acceptance of risks exceeding the true tolerance of the
company or the community.

Where/When Is It Done?
HIRA reviews may be performed at any stage in a projects life cycle
conceptual design, preliminary design, detailed design, construction, ongoing
operation, decommissioning, or demolition. In general, the earlier that a hazard is
identified (e.g., during conceptual design), the more cost-effectively it can be
eliminated or managed. Studies performed during the early design stages are
typically done at corporate or engineering offices. Studies performed once a

process is near startup, during operation, or before decommissioning are

typically done in a plant environment.

Who Does It?

A HIRA study is typically performed by a team of qualified experts on the
process, the materials, and the work activities. Personnel who have formal
training on risk analysis methods usually lead these teams, applying the selected
analysis technique(s) with subject matter experts from engineering, operations,
maintenance, and other disciplines as needed. A simple early-in-life hazard
identification study may be performed by a single expert; however, a
multidisciplined team typically conducts more hazardous or complex process risk
studies, especially during later life cycle stages. Involving operating and
maintenance personnel early in the review process will help identify hazards
when they can be eliminated or controlled most cost effectively. When the study
is complete, management must then decide whether to implement any
recommended risk reduction measures to achieve its risk goals.

What Is the Anticipated Work Product?

The main process safety products of a risk system are: (1) guidelines for
planning and conducting studies, (2) documented understanding of the risks of
the process or activity, (3) documented risk tolerance criteria, (4) possible risk
control measures, resolutions, and implemented actions, (5) documented
understanding of the residual risks after control measures are taken, and (6)
completed risk analysis reports. Other work products may include
recommendations for improving asset integrity, procedures, and training as well
as up-to-date action item tracking lists and risk communication materials. The
scope of HIRAs is sometimes broadened to include operability issues, so the
work products may also include recommendations to (1) improve quality
and yield, (2) reduce equipment damage, and/or (3) reduce unplanned downtime.
The results of risk studies are normally kept for the life of the process and are
communicated to those who may be affected. Outputs of the risk element can
also be used to facilitate the performance of other elements. For example,
identifying potential accidents will help define scenarios the emergency element
must address, and understanding the existing risks may enable the management
of change element to identify the risks of a change.

How Is It Done?
At each stage in the project life cycle, a review team questions process experts
about possible hazards and judges the risk of any hazards that are identified.
Several common methods exist for questioning a design, ranging from simple
qualitative checklists to complex quantitative fault tree analyses (Refs. 9.2, 9.3,
9.4). The results of the review process are typically documented in a worksheet
form, illustrated in Figure 9.2, which varies in detail, depending on the stage of
the project and the evaluation method used. Risk studies on operating processes
are typically updated or revalidated on a regular basis.

What is a hazard?
The meaning of the word hazard can be confusing. Often dictionaries do not give specific
definitions or combine it with the term "risk". For example, one dictionary defines hazard as "a
danger or risk" which helps explain why many people use the terms interchangeably.
There are many definitions for hazard but the more common definition when talking about
workplace health and safety is:
A hazard is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse health effects on something or
someone under certain conditions at work.
Basically, a hazard can cause harm or adverse effects (to individuals as health effects or to
organizations as property or equipment losses).
Sometimes a hazard is referred to as being the actual harm or the health effect it caused rather
than the hazard. For example, the disease tuberculosis (TB) might be called a hazard by some but
in general the TB-causing bacteria would be considered the "hazard" or "hazardous biological
agent".

What are examples of a hazard?

Workplace hazards can come from a wide range of sources. General examples include any
substance, material, process, practice, etc that has the ability to cause harm or adverse health
effect to a person under certain conditions. See Table 1.
Table 1
Examples of Hazards and Their Effects
Workplace Hazard
Example of Hazard
Thing
Knife
Substance
Benzene
Material
Asbestos
Source of Energy
Electricity
Condition
Wet floor
Process
Welding
Practice
Hard rock mining

Example of Harm Caused

Cut
Leukemia
Mesothelioma
Shock, electrocution
Slips, falls
Metal fume fever
Silicosis

As shown in Table 1, workplace hazards also include practices or conditions that release
uncontrolled energy like:

an object that could fall from a height (potential or gravitational energy),

a run-away chemical reaction (chemical energy),

the release of compressed gas or steam (pressure; high temperature),

entanglement of hair or clothing in rotating equipment (kinetic energy), or

contact with electrodes of a battery or capacitor (electrical energy).

What is risk?
Risk is the chance or probability that a person will be harmed or experience an adverse health
effect if exposed to a hazard. It may also apply to situations with property or equipment loss.
For example: The risk of developing cancer from smoking cigarettes could be expressed as
"cigarette smokers are 12 times (for example) more likely to die of lung cancer than nonsmokers". Another way of reporting risk is "a certain number, "Y", of smokers per 100,000
smokers will likely develop lung cancer" (depending on their age and how many years they have
been smoking). These risks are expressed as a probability or likelihood of developing a disease
or getting injured, whereas hazards refer to the possible consequences (e.g., lung cancer,
emphysema and heart disease from cigarette smoking).
Factors that influence the degree of risk include:

how much a person is exposed to a hazardous thing or condition,

how the person is exposed (e.g., breathing in a vapour, skin contact), and

how severe are the effects under the conditions of exposure.

What is a risk assessment?

Risk assessment is the process where you:

identify hazards,

analyze or evaluate the risk associated with that hazard, and

determine appropriate ways to eliminate or control the hazard.

The OSH Answers Risk Assessment has details on how to conduct an assessment and establish
priorities.

What is an adverse health effect?

A general definition of adverse health effect is "any change in body function or the structures of
cells that can lead to disease or health problems".
Adverse health effects include:

bodily injury,

disease,

change in the way the body functions, grows, or develops,

effects on a developing fetus (teratogenic effects, fetotoxic effects),

effects on children, grandchildren, etc. (inheritable genetic effects)

decrease in life span,

change in mental condition resulting from stress, traumatic experiences, exposure to

solvents, and so on, and

effects on the ability to accommodate additional stress.

Will exposure to hazards in the

workplace always cause injury, illness
or other adverse health effects?
Not necessarily. To answer this question, you need to know:

what hazards are present,

how a person is exposed (route of exposure, as well as how often and how much
exposure occurred),

what kind of effect could result from the specific exposure a person experienced,

the risk (or likelihood) that exposure to a hazardous thing or condition would cause an
injury, or disease or some incidence causing damage, and

how severe would the damage, injury or harm (adverse health effect) be from the
exposure.

The effects can be acute, meaning that the injury or harm can occur or be felt as soon as a person
comes in contact with the hazardous agent (e.g., a splash of acid in a person's eyes). Some
responses to may be chronic (delayed). For example, exposure to poison ivy may cause red
swelling on the skin two to six hours after contact with the plant. On the other hand, longer
delays are possible: mesothelioma, a kind of cancer in the lining in the lung cavity, can develop
over 20 years or more after exposure to asbestos.
Once the hazard is removed or eliminated, the effects may be reversible or irreversible. For
example, a hazard may cause an injury that can heal completely (reversible) or result in an
untreatable disease (irreversible).

What types of hazards are there?

A common way to classify hazards is by category:

biological - bacteria, viruses, insects, plants, birds, animals, and humans, etc.,

chemical - depends on the physical, chemical and toxic properties of the chemical.

ergonomic - repetitive movements, improper set up of workstation, etc.,

physical - radiation, magnetic fields, pressure extremes (high pressure or vacuum), noise,
etc,

psychosocial - stress, violence, etc.,

safety - slipping/tripping hazards, inappropriate machine guarding, equipment

malfunctions or breakdowns

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