MARINE RISK ASSESSMENT AND MANAGEMENT: BRIEF ESSENTIAL POINTS
Working on board a ship often exposes seafarers to a variety of work-related accidents and incidents. In most cases, these may have been easily avoided had a proper risk assessment been undertaken.
What is risk?
Risk is a combination of the likelihood of an incident or accident happening and the severity or consequence of the harm or damage.
All individuals perceive risk differently and it is therefore important that the individual carrying out an assessment has sufficient training and guidance to ensure that the task is performed in a consistent and thorough manner.
Risks can be identified by an individual or team who sit down and discuss the possible hazards associated with it.
What is a risk assessment?
A risk assessment is simply an assessment of risk. It is an examination of a task or job that may be carried out on board to identify the presence of hazards that may cause harm to people, property or the environment.
When should a risk assessment take place?
Risk assessments should be routinely carried out and be reviewed every year or whenever there are significant changes to either the ship or associated working activities. Risk assessments can be used as a reference document when giving a tool box talk prior to carrying out a task.
Risk Management Basic Fundamentals
This topic is to provide basic instruction on the fundamentals of Risk Assessment and Risk Management (RA & RM) and to highlight the procedures and responsibilities that all Marines must take in both an operational and non-operational environment in order To identify hazards and
- To eliminate hazards or
- To reduce the risks associated with the hazards and
- To prepare means and be ready to take all possible measures to reduce the lost when accident associated with the hazards occurs.
Risk Management is every Marine’s duty and responsibility, regardless of rank. By properly applying the fundamentals of RM, Marines have the ability to correctly identify hazards and eliminate unnecessary risk or reduce necessary risk to an acceptable level.
Risk management is the process of
- Identifying,
- Assessing, and
- Controlling risks
Commanders must firmly ground current and future leaders in the critical skills of the five-step risk management process.
Risk Management Principles
RM enhances hazard identification in the operational environment in order to eliminate risks or reduce them to acceptable level. This requires commitment and creative leadership – innovative planning, careful management.
Risk management is the process of identifying and controlling hazards to conserve combat power and resources. The five steps of risk management are: ·
Step 1. Identify hazards ·
Step 2. Assess hazards to determine risk ·
Step 3. Develop controls and make risk decisions ·
Step 4. Implement controls ·
Step 5. Supervise and evaluate
Applying control measures to reduce the risk
Control measures may be applied either to reduce the likelihood of the occurrence or to reduce the severity of the consequences. Once the controls have been applied to ensure the risk has been mitigated to the lowest possible level. If this level still remains unacceptable, further controls must be put into place before the task/job is undertaken.
Monitoring the effectiveness of the controls
A risk assessment is just a snap shot in time, our surroundings are constantly changing therefore monitoring the effectiveness of the controls and assessment of the risks needs to be done on a regular basis, especially if a trend starts to develop with accidents, incidents and near misses.
October, 2019
Capt. Do Ngoc Hoai
ISM VIETNAM