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Posted By Kevin Douglas
We have a large maintenance department, approximately 30 individuals, who carry out planned maintenance/breakdown activities on a heavy engineering site that is 477, 500 square feet. Up to now the company has struggled with the completion of risk assessments for maintenance activities. The main issue is with the methodology. I have tried to convince the relevant responsible persons that these assessments must be activity based assessments, however they have struggled with this due to the size and complexity of the tasks. For example, these guys repair and maintain a number of large OH travelling cranes on site and the tasks on this piece of plant alone can be very extensive. There are also a very high number of other heavy machinery including 30K Ton and 9K Ton Forging presses. Their point, which is pretty fair to be honest, is that if they were to assess all their activities, the number of assessments would run to thousands rendering the system unmanageable. They have asked if I can devise a system which is generic e.g. conduct an assessment covering all work on OH cranes. Has anyone faced similar problems and if so did you resolve it, and if so how? I don't want to force people to do something that a) they aren't buying into and b) it ends up being a 'paperwork exercise', but at the same time I want to ensure that we are meeting our legal obligations under MHSWR regarding suitable and sufficient RA's.
Thanks to anyone who can provide me with some advice on this.
Kevin.
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Posted By jason telford
The trouble with carrying out a new risk assessment each and every time means the engineers will simply miss out the assessments and do the work
Develop generic assessments of the repair work and then include a separate risk assessment for the area/department where the work will be carried out
It is simply not practicable to carry out a risk assessment each and every time you go to repair a crane especially when the element of risk and majority of the work remains the same
By Simplifying the procedures and creating generic assessments you’ll find you get buy in from the staff
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Posted By Ron Hunter
Does the Organisation have any risk assessments? What about normal operations and activities? Could not maintenance risk assessments mirror the scope and scale as devised for normal ops, or is the lack of management 'buy-in' more endemic?
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Posted By Merv Newman
My legal environment is rather different from that in the UK. Until very recently risk asessments were only done for contractors. One-offs for a one-off job and annual for the permanents (cleaners ...)
We now have to do them for employees - once a year ! (and following any significant change) RAs are done for each work post except maintenance where they are activity related. For them, generic RAs are available but, if necessary, are adapted on the spot for each job. Eventually people build up a file of "generic" RAs suitable for most maintenance assignments.
An important point is that the RA must be reviewed on the spot with the people concerned immediately before the work starts.
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Posted By Lumpy
Risk is relative and subjective. A cleaner making up a 10% bleach solution may need a risk assessment, however an analytical chemist with a PhD probably wouldn't need one for the same task .... to the cleaner the risk is significant, but to the chemist it is not.
In most instances the expert is the person doing the job. Train those individuals on hazard identification / risk assessment and agree with them what risks are significant.
The point I am trying to make is that you may have far less "significant" risks than you think. Competent electricians don't need a risk assessment detailing how to wire a plug.
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Posted By A. Fergusson
The test will sadly come when an accident occurs, you need to be able to show that emplyees are not exposed to excessive risk, that there are adequate controls and that staff have been made aware of the hazards and controls and this is not to do with skill based training.
No workplace is simple to assess, but start with the basics, look at the tasks, the equipment and tools and the level of training given to the staff. Then carry out job specific assessment on any identified high risk elements. No assessments will be impossible to defend.
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