Risk Assessment, 2nd Edition

1Risk Assessments: Their Significance

Fred A. Manuele

Hazards Limited, Arlington Heights, IL, USA

OBJECTIVES

• Inform on a relatively new international standard that requires making risk assessments and an updated American standard that includes similar requirements.
• Establish that safety professionals will be expected to have the knowledge and skills to make and advice on risk assessments and to give counsel in the design and redesign processes.
• Provide awareness of how risk assessments have been incorporated into selected standards and guidelines.
• Enlighten on the activities initiated by the American Society of Safety Professionals on risk assessments.
• Discuss risk assessment systems.
• Advice on how to adopt risk assessment systems.
• Overall, to establish that risk assessments have become more significant within a safety and health management system.

1.1 Introduction

In the first edition of this book, the purpose of the first chapter was to encourage safety professionals to recognize the trending throughout the world to include requirements for risk assessments in safety and health‐related standards and guidelines. Further, the position was taken that it was logical to expect that having the capability to make risk assessments would eventually become a requirement for the safety and health position.

To support the positions taken, 35 subjects were included in Addendum A, which was titled “A List of Standards, Guidelines, and Initiatives That Require or Promote Making ...