Risk Assessment

Risk assess­ment began as a dis­ci­pline in the late 1960s, with some of the ear­li­est for­mal papers pub­lished in the ear­ly 1970s. The ear­ly researchers were part of the US mil­i­tary and were inter­est­ed in reduc­ing the risks for mil­i­tary per­son­nel car­ry­ing out their duties.

Since then, risk assess­ment has become vital in reduc­ing risk to man­u­fac­tur­ers, employ­ers, and work­ers. Today, exten­sive research is being done by orga­ni­za­tions and uni­ver­si­ties around the world.

Risk assess­ment involves iden­ti­fy­ing and ana­lyz­ing haz­ards and decid­ing how like­ly they are to harm peo­ple. For more infor­ma­tion about risk assess­ment, see this series on our blog.

We can help you

Risk assessment training

For those new to risk assess­ment, we can pro­vide train­ing and facil­i­ta­tion ser­vices and con­duct risk assess­ments on your prod­ucts. We offer both pub­lic and pri­vate train­ing. Our online risk assess­ment cours­es are avail­able through our train­ing por­tal.

Additional resources

Books

Risk Assess­ment: Basics and Bench­marks, Bruce Main. See the IEEE Xplore Review

Inno­va­tions in Safe­ty Man­age­ment, Fred Manuele, Sept 2001

On the Prac­tice of Safe­ty, Fred Manuele, 3rd edi­tion, 2003.

For the Love of Zero, Dr. Robert Long, 2012

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Standards

Amer­i­can Nation­al Stan­dard — Safe­ty of Machin­ery, ANSI B11.0. Wash­ing­ton, DC: Amer­i­can Nation­al Stan­dards Insti­tute (ANSI). 2020. Avail­able: https://webstore.ansi.org/standards/amt/ansib11. 2020. [Accessed: 2024-10-03]

Safe­guard­ing of Machin­ery, CSA Z432. Toron­to: Cana­di­an Stan­dards Asso­ci­a­tion (CSA). 2024. Avail­able: https://www.csagroup.org/store/product/CSA_Z432%3A23/. [Accessed: 2024-10-03]

Ben­e­fit-risk assess­ment for sports and recre­ation­al facil­i­ties, activ­i­ties and equip­ment, ISO 4980. Gene­va: Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Stan­dard­iza­tion (ISO). 2023. Avail­able: https://www.iso.org/standard/80573.html. [Accessed: 2024-10-03]

Safe­ty of machin­ery — Gen­er­al prin­ci­ples for design — Risk assess­ment and risk reduc­tion, ISO 12100. Gene­va: Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Stan­dard­iza­tion (ISO). 2010. Avail­able: https://www.iso.org/standard/51528.html. [Accessed: 2024-10-03]

Risk man­age­ment — Guide­lines, ISO 31000. Gene­va: Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Stan­dard­iza­tion (ISO). 2018. Avail­able: https://www.iso.org/standard/65694.html. [Accessed: 2024-10-03]

Risk man­age­ment — Risk assess­ment tech­niques, ISO 31010. Inter­na­tion­al Orga­ni­za­tion for Stan­dard­iza­tion (ISO). 2019. Avail­able: https://www.iso.org/standard/72140.html. [Accessed: 2024-10-03]

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Podcasts

PreAc­ci­dent Inves­ti­ga­tion Pod­cast (USA) — Dr. Todd Conklin

The Safe­ty of Work (Aus­tralia) — Dr. Drew Rae and Dr. David Provan 

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Web Sites

CCOHS: Cana­di­an Cen­tre for Occu­pa­tion­al Health and Safe­ty (Cana­da)

Human Dymen­sions (Aus­tralia)

Risk Analy­sis – risk ana­lyst social network

Risknowl­o­gy

Wikipedia: Risk Assessment