Lesson 3 of 6
Health and safety risk assessment
9 min
Listen to this lesson
Incidents tell you what went wrong. Risk assessment tries to find it first. EHS health and safety management supports hazard identification, risk analysis and job hazard analyses, the validation of hazards, impacts and controls, chemical approval with vendor safety data sheets, chemical inventory reporting, and industrial hygiene sampling, with corrective and preventive actions tracked in the same system.
A job hazard analysis for drum changes
After the splash incident, Monique's team reassesses the varnish drum change at WIND-10. The task is broken into steps; for each step the team identifies hazards, rates the risk before controls, defines controls and rates the residual risk. The assessment links to the location, the job and the chemical, so a later change to any of them can trigger a review.
| Step | Hazard | Risk before (S × L) | Controls | Residual risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Move drum to tank | Manual handling, strain | Medium (3 × 2) | Drum trolley | Low (2 × 1) |
| Open drum | Vapor inhalation | Medium (2 × 3) | Local exhaust ventilation | Low (2 × 1) |
| Transfer varnish | Splash to eyes and skin | High (4 × 3) | Drum pump, face shield, gloves | Low (2 × 1) |
| Clean spills | Flammable vapor, ignition | High (4 × 2) | Spill kit, no ignition sources, procedure | Medium (3 × 1) |
Job hazard analysis for the WIND-10 varnish drum change (illustrative 4 × 4 matrix: severity × likelihood).
Controls follow the hierarchy of controls: eliminate the hazard, substitute something safer, use engineering controls, then administrative controls, and personal protective equipment last. The drum pump is an engineering control; the face shield is PPE. A good assessment records which level each control belongs to, because auditors and investigators ask why a higher-level control was not used.
Chemical approval
Before a new chemical can be used on site, EHS approves it: the vendor's safety data sheet is reviewed, hazards are assessed for the intended use, and conditions are set (quantities, locations, PPE). When Contoso's purchasing team wants to buy a lower-VOC varnish from a new supplier, the request goes through chemical approval first. Integration with purchasing can stop a purchase order for an unapproved chemical, which is the control to test.
Management of change
Switching to a new varnish changes a process, which is exactly what management of change (MoC) exists for. SAP describes MoC with change requests from field users, rules to route them, expert input to risk assessment, and tracked tasks closing back into the ERP. For Contoso, the MoC request for the new varnish triggers a new job hazard analysis, a check of the air permit's VOC calculations (lesson 4), and a training task before the first drum is used.
What would you do?
In testing, a buyer creates a purchase order for a chemical that EHS has not approved, and nothing stops it. What do you check first?
What goes wrong in testing
- Risk assessments are tested as forms, not as triggers: nobody checks that a changed chemical or job reopens the assessment.
- Chemical approval works for new materials, but existing materials converted from ECC have no approval status and are blocked, or are not checked at all.
- Risk matrices are configured differently from the paper policy the EHS team actually uses.
- Corrective actions from assessments are not linked to incident actions, so duplicates and gaps appear.
Industrial hygiene sampling and chemical inventory
Risk ratings for chemical exposure should rest on measurements. Health and safety management supports workplace sampling campaigns, for example air samples for varnish solvent vapor at WIND-10 compared with occupational exposure limits, and reporting of chemical inventories, such as the Tier II reports under SARA section 312 that SAP Learning mentions. For testing, the important links are: a sample result above a limit must raise the related risk and create an action, and the chemical inventory must reconcile with what purchasing and inventory say is on site.
| Link | Test |
|---|---|
| Sample above exposure limit | Enter a high result; check the risk rating and action |
| Approved chemical used at a location | Check the inventory report includes it at that location |
| Chemical no longer used | Remove it; check it drops from the inventory report |
Tests that connect measurements and inventories to risk.
- Risk assessment covers hazard identification, risk analysis, job hazard analysis and controls.
- Rate risk before and after controls; record the hierarchy level of each control.
- Chemical approval can block purchasing of unapproved chemicals; test the block.
- Management of change routes process changes through risk assessment and tasks.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. In the hierarchy of controls, what comes last?
2. What does chemical approval check before a purchase?
3. What should trigger a review of a job hazard analysis?
4. Why record the hierarchy level of each control?