Dashpivot Article – Field Level Risk Assessment examples

Field Level Risk Assessment Examples

In this article, we will help you understand the contents of a field risk assessment and provide you with real-world field level risk assessment examples to use as you see fit.

What is a field-level risk assessment?

In this part of the article, we will be navigating through how you should conduct your field-level risk assessment. With this process, you will be able to completely assess the hazards and provide the appropriate measures for all the activities involved in your establishment

Review

In this part of the procedure, you need to step back and think if all the tools, documents needed, activity procedures, and any other requirements needed for the activity are present. This certain part of the field-level risk assessment is like a checklist of all the things needed to be prepared when doing a specific activity. Most of these requirements are guidelines and established protective measures that one should conduct or bring before starting the activity. This is an important field because if one of the items is not present or is not available, it will be an added hazard to be listed in the next procedure.

Hazard Identification

This is the most crucial part of your field-level risk assessment. You need to review each procedure of a certain activity and pick out the possible hazards that could arise when doing such procedure. Let's have a simple example to shed light on this. Let’s consider a simple household activity, like mowing the lawn, which will have only 3 steps for this example, which are starting the lawnmower, mowing the lawn, and turning off the lawnmower. When identifying hazards, one must go through each procedure of the activity. So, when starting the lawnmower, we could say that one of the possible hazards is improper handling when plugging in the plug. When mowing the lawn, we could pinpoint the following hazards: debris on the lawn, lawnmower wire all over the place, and improper operation of lawnmower. And lastly, for the step in the procedure, which is turning off the lawnmower, the hazard identified could be the same as the first procedure, which is improper plugging off of the plug. Having this kind of thorough process in identifying your hazards will help you not miss out on any possible hazards that may arise and that all hazards can be provided with enough controls to eliminate or mitigate them.

Risk Assessment

Risk assessments are the possible impacts that the hazards listed might cause. In short, these are effects of the hazards. To understand it further, let us again use the lawnmower activity to provide the risks associated with the hazards that were identified.

Hazard: Improper handling of the plug (which is found on the first and last step of the provided example)

Risks: Electrocution that can cause 2nd-3rd Degree burns

Hazard: Debris on Lawn

Risks: Debris could fly off towards the operator at high velocity.

Hazard: Lawnmower wire all over the place

Risks: Electrocution that can cause 2nd-3rd Degree burns Can potentially cause the operator to trip and fall, and the lawnmower might hit its own wire and cause it to malfunction.

Hazard: Improper operation of lawnmower

Risks: Malfunctions that can ignite a fire

Risk Scoring

During this part of the procedure, we will assess the risk we have identified in our risk assessments on the hazards we have identified. The assessment is based on two factors, which are likelihood and impact severity. Likelihood scores indicate how likely the risk could occur when doing the activity, while impact severity scores indicate how severe the impact could be. These two scores are multiplied; we get the risk scoring, which can be our basis on how and what kind of controls we should establish to eliminate or mitigate the hazards. To paint a clearer picture, here’s an example of using a risk scoring matrix below to score your risks.

Hazard: Debris on Lawn

Risks: Debris could fly off towards the operator at high velocity.
Likelihood: Possible
Severity: Significant (Considering the debris could fly-off into the eye of the operator, causing permanent eye damage)
Risk Score: Medium High (Since it falls on the orange level, it must be assured that a strong control or more than 1 control is required for this hazard.)

Likelihood \ Severity	Negligible	Minor	Moderate	Significant	Severe
Very Likely	Low Med	Medium	Med Hi	High	High
Likely	Low	Low Med	Medium	Med Hi	High
Possible	Low	Low Med	Medium	Med Hi	Med Hi
Unlikely	Low	Low Med	Low Med	Medium	Med Hi
Very Unlikely	Low	Low	Low Med	Medium	Medium

Control Measures

On this part of the field-level risk assessment, we are going to provide and document the appropriate controls based on the scores that have resulted from our risk assessment. To guide us with our control measures, we can use the hierarchy of control. It arranges restrictions according to their degree of protection, starting with the most effective. When choosing a control technique, start from the highest level of the pyramid. Examine the viability of the first control layer (elimination) before proceeding to the second (substitution). Keep going until you get to the base of the pyramid and have determined how many controls are required to sufficiently shield the worker from the risk. Here is each of the hierarchies explained:

Elimination: The process of eliminating a danger at work is known as elimination. Because the danger is eliminated, it is the most efficient method of risk management. It should be used whenever feasible, as it is the recommended method of hazard control.
Substitution: the next control strategy that should be considered if hazard elimination is not feasible. The act of substituting something for another is called substitution, and in this instance, a hazard is swapped out with a less dangerous one. To decide if an alternative is a suitable substitute, the risks and dangers involved must be carefully evaluated.
Engineering Controls: Engineering controls are a very dependable way to control worker exposures, provided that they are properly designed, used, and maintained. These methods will control the hazard at the source, before it comes into contact with the worker. It can be incorporated into the design of a plant, piece of machinery, or process to reduce the risk
Administrative Controls: This entails altering a work activity or process to lower the risk; a modification should be monitored both before and after it is put into effect to ensure that the hazard was really controlled.
PPE: A worker's personal protective equipment (PPE) is anything that they wear to assist in protecting themselves against risks that may be present in their job. In circumstances when other methods of exposure control, such as elimination, substitution, engineering, or administrative controls, are not feasible, personal protective equipment (PPE) should be used as the main means of exposure control.

Before we jump into a bunch of different field level risk assessment examples, view the example structure below to get a sense of how any risk assessment should be conducted.

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Field level risk assessment examples in different industries

On top of the above field level risk assessment template, In this part of the article, we will be giving a few examples of a risk assessment on different industrial sectors to help you get an idea of making your risk assessment.

Field Level Risk Assessment Examples on Constructions Sites

In the construction industry, it is highly suggested to conduct a field-level risk assessment before doing the activity. Activities that involve working at heights, using heavy machinery and power tools, and demolition need more in-depth assessments, for these are considered high-risk activities.

Example:

Activity: Erecting Scaffolds
Hazards (risks):
- Falling from heights (fractures and bruises sustained from falling)
- Structure collapsing (Falling debris hitting nearby personnel, sustaining blunt force trauma)
- Slipping (Bruises)
- Tripping (bruises)
Control Measures: Assigning personnel who are certified and trained to erect the scaffolding, inspecting scaffolds durability before using them, and using regulation-standard harnesses.

Manufacturing and Production Plants

These plants usually operate for 24 hours. Having said that, a field-level risk assessment is suggested to be done by shift. The group could lay out the activities to be done by the day and conduct a risk assessment for each activity. Upon reviewing, it is important to consider the following: Inspecting the condition of the equipment, making sure the safety protocols are followed, verifying if employees are adequately trained, and ensuring they are wearing the required PPE.

Example

Activity: Turning on Conveyor system
Hazards (risks):
- Pinch points ( fractures and lacerations of caught appendage)
- Open Wires (Electrocution leading to 2nd-3rd degree burns)
- Equipment malfunction (Fires)
Control Measures: Provide guards on pinch points, equipment inspection before operating, and integration of an emergency stop feature on the conveyor system.

Field Level Risk Examples in Oil and Gas

The oil and gas industry is considered a high-risk industry. It is a critical industry since it involves a lot of hazardous work. Having said that, it is paramount to conduct field-level risk assessment for every aspect of its operatiion. The field risk assessments can mostly focus on controlling gas leaks, fire risks, and mechanical failures. These are usually the causes of disastrous events that we don’t want to happen.

Example:

Activity: Drilling
Hazards (Risks)
- Pipe leaks (Fire and Explosion)
- Toxic Chemical Exposure ( Poisoning)
- Borehole Instability (Structure Collapse)
Control Measures: Through inspection of pipes, employees are properly geared with protective equipment and an established procedure on alternate worker exposure, strong implementation of proper procedures in drilling mud management.

Mining

Just like the oil and gas industry, mining is considered a high-risk industry. It also involves a lot of hazardous work in its operation. With that, mining also needs to be critical in conducting a field-level assessment on all aspects of its operation.

Example

Activity: Underground Mining
Hazards (risks)
- Poor Air Quality (Oxygen Deficiency)
- Rockfall (Blunt force trauma)
Control Measures: Provision of a ventilation system and a procedure for stabilising rock masses.

Digitise your field-level Risk Assessments

There are several stages involved in creating and conducting your risk assessment by hand using the pen-and-paper approach before you can get any results. Everything is formatted by hand, which makes the creation of your inspection form take a lot of time. Furthermore, printing it frequently only to record a few items on the assessment uses a lot of resources. This doesn't help the environment, especially nowadays, where we should be trying to save the planet.

Fortunately, there is now a smart way to do these risk assessment. With the Dashpivot field-level risk assessment app, there is no need to move between paper and digital devices since you can do digital assessments with ease and record all required data on a single device. You can tailor the pre-built risk assessment to meet your project needs, or you can create your own form using the drag-and-drop form builder, adding any necessary fields or sections. This will remove the effort of creating your forms manually.

Additionally, by sharing your standardised form in the app, you can make it simple for your staff to complete risk assessments on location. They may do the assessment on their phone, and once they submit it, it will instantly sync back to the office. You can also take photos inside the app on your phone or tablet on-site as you're conducting the assessment. The hassle of manually encoding data from different sources will now be removed when using this app.

All these and more when using the digital Dashpivot platform of the field-level risk assessment app. With this, all your processes included in your field-level risk assessment will be streamlined and made more efficient.

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About Felmar Niecel Mantalaba

Felmar is a mechanical engineer whose 4 years of experience in the mining industry inspired him to write and share stories to progress the revolution of new technologies and create smarter, smoother ways of living.

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