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is so Useful On Board ?
Written by Capt Bhupender Singh Banga on October 17, 2016
Many believe risk assessment is quite boring subject and has nothing
to do with reality on board ships.
Risk assessment is not a new thing. Its only that shipping industry is
taking it more seriously now.
Let us discuss.
This quote from Reid Hoffman outlines what risk assessment is all
about. On board a ship, there are many hazards and these pose even
more risks. Risk assessment acts as a tool to manage these risks.
There are three main reasons as to why it is important to carry out risk
assessment.
Even with maritime scenario, the whole purpose of the risk assessment
is to answer this question. “Will it be safe to go ahead with an
operation ?”
It was the year 1997 that marked a major step towards risk based
approach in the maritime field. This was the time when the Maritime
safety committee (MSC) and the Marine Environmental Protection
Committee (MEPC) of the IMO adopted the Interim Guidelines for the
Application of Formal Safety Assessment (FSA) to the IMO Rule-Making
Process.
Since then risk assessment has only been evolving and it has now
become a decision making tool at the ground level too.
1. Identification of Hazards
First step is to identify all the hazards. But to identify hazards we must
understand what a hazard is ? We sometimes get confused between
hazard and risk. These examples can simplify this.
The use of the term ‘hazard’ originated in the nuclear and chemical
industries for which a wide range of different types of ‘hazards’ are
present all the time (e.g. nuclear material, flammable gases, toxic
chemicals etc.)
2. Risk Estimation
Safety is related to the degree of absence of risk. Because no activity
is free of risk, an activity is considered safe when the level of risk is
within acceptable limits.
IMO defines risk as ‘the combination of the frequency and the severity
of the consequence’ (MSC Circ 1023/MEPC Circ 392). Here the
frequency is ‘the number of occurrences per unit time (e.g. per year)’
and consequence is ‘the outcome of an accident’.
In simple words, risk has two components:
Cost
time
effort involved.
Each company may have different method which you will get in
company’s safety management manuals.
The company SMS should identify the level of risk for which additional
controls will be required before the job is started.
For example the company might decide that additional controls are
required if the risk level is Moderate or above as per below example of
risk matrix.
Now that we have estimated and identified the steps to manage the
risk, it is time to implement these actions. We also need to establish
responsibilities for each identified actions to reduce risk.
For example if both the probability and severity can be quantified, the
risk is simply the product.
Conclusion