BKB3533

OSH in Chemical & Biotechnology

Industries

Chapter 6:
RISK ASSESSMENT
By:
Dr. Mior Ahmad Khushairi Bin Mohd Zahari
Lecturer, FKKSA, UMP
09-5492837/0148290960
ahmadkhushairi@ump.edu.my;
ahmadkhushairi@gmail.com

Objectives
Describe risk assessment
Construct Fault Tree diagram

INTRODUCTION
The term risk assessment comes from the insurance

industry & was one stage in their process of determining

and spreading liabilities they carried.
Objective:

to identify hazards so that action can be taken to

eliminate, reduce or control them before accident
that cause damage or injury occur.

What is 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.

In practical terms, a risk assessment is a thorough look at your

workplace to identify those things, situations, processes, etc that may

cause harm, particularly to people. After identification is made, you
evaluate how likely and severe the risk is, and then decide what
measures should be in place to effectively prevent or control the harm
from happening.

Why is Risk Assessment important?

Risk assessments are very important as they form an

integral part of a good occupational health and safety

management plan.They help to:
create awareness of hazards and risks,
identify who may be at risk (employees, cleaners, visitors,
contractors, the public, etc),
determine if existing control measures are adequate or if
more should be done,
prevent injuries or illnesses when done at the design or
planning stage, and
prioritize hazards and control measures.

What is a goal of Risk Assessment ?

The aim of the risk assessment process is to remove a hazard

or reduce the level of its risk by adding precautions or

control measures, as necessary. By doing so, you have
created a safer and healthier workplace.

Fault Tree Analysis

Fault Tree is a method by which a particular undesired

system failure mode can be expressed in terms of

component failure modes and operator actions.
The system failure mode to be considered is termed the

top event and fault tree is developed in branches below

this event showing it causes.

Fault Tree Procedure

1.

2.
3.
4.
5.

Draw the top event

Determine major events that contribute to the top event
Parallel AND; Series OR
Consider the intermediate events, what events must occur
to contribute to that intermediate event?
Continue until all the branches terminated by basic,
undeveloped or external events.

Flat Tire
Well defined
accidents/Top
event

Flat Tire

Tire Failure

Defective
Tire

Road
Debris

Basic/Intermediate
events

Basic events

Worn Tire

Process Plant Fire

Well defined
accidents/Top
event

Fire

Fuel

Leaking
joint

Oxygen

Drain
valve
open

Basic/Intermediate
events

Ignition

Welding
in
progress

Electric
motor

Basic events

Fault Tree Logic Transfer Components

BASIC
event

A fault event that needs no further definition

INTERMEDIATE An event that results from the interaction of a

events
number of other events
UNDEVELOPED An event that cannot be developed further due

event
EXTERNAL
event

Expanded
event

to lack of suitable information

An event that is a boundary condition to the fault
tree

Used to transfer the fault tree into and out of a

sheet of paper

Advantages
It begins with a top event

Disadvantages
For complicated

Its specific

Used to determine min cut

sets
Computer application with
reference libraries

processes, FT will be
enormous
Will take a long time
Not all failure modes
might have been
considered
Possibility of a partial
failure
Different structures if
developed by different
individual