In Brief

  • Hazard analysis and risk assessment are the keystones of ANSI/ASSE Z590.3, Prevention Through Design.

  • OSH professionals must help personnel develop skills to facilitate these analyses and assessments.

  • Academia is uniquely suited to develop novel approaches for industry's ultimate use. This article discusses models for assessing training outcomes, and proposes a concept hazard analysis/risk assessment skill development model.

In September 2011, ASSE announced the approval of ANSI/ASSE Z590.3, Prevention Through Design (PTD): Guidelines for Addressing Occupational Risks in Design and Redesign Processes. The standard requires hazard analysis and risk assessment whenever "new facilities, equipment technologies and processes are being planned, designed, acquired or installed" (ANSI/ASSE, 2011, p. 4), when alterations are made, following incident investigations and even when demolition or decommissioning work is performed. Hazard analysis and risk assessment require an organization to ask key questions, such as, What are the functions, features or requirements? What can go wrong? What are the effects? How often does it happen? How can it be prevented and detected? (ANSI/ASSE Z590.3, Addendum H). In Section 8, the standard cites three specific basic techniques for addressing most assessment needs: preliminary hazard analysis and risk assessment; what-if/checklists analysis methods; and failure mode and effects analysis.

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