Explore the concepts, methods and tools behind effective Critical Risk Management.
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Critical Risk Management.
From first principles to field application.
Critical Risk Management focuses attention on the events and exposures capable of causing fatal or life-changing harm and the controls relied upon to prevent or mitigate them.
The principle is straightforward:
Know what can seriously harm someone.
Know what prevents it.
Know whether it works.
The practice requires greater discipline.
This knowledge centre brings the pieces together.
Start here.
New to Critical Risk Management?
Start with these foundations.
WHAT IS A CRITICAL RISK?
Understand what makes a risk critical and why critical risks should be defined as events or exposures rather than broad hazard categories.
WHAT IS A CRITICAL CONTROL?
Understand what makes a control genuinely critical and how critical controls differ from other risk controls.
WHAT IS CRITICAL RISK MANAGEMENT?
Understand how risks, pathways, controls, performance requirements, verification, response, learning and assurance fit together.
CRITICAL CONTROL VERIFICATION
Understand what verification is, what it should test and why completing a check is not the same as demonstrating control effectiveness.
The Critical Risk model.
A practical Critical Risk Management system connects a small number of important concepts.
What serious event or exposure could occur?
PATHWAY
How could serious harm develop?
CRITICAL CONTROL
What interrupts that pathway?
PERFORMANCE STANDARD
What must the control achieve?
PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENT
What conditions must be satisfied?
VERIFICATION
What evidence tells us whether those conditions exist?
DECISION
Can the control be relied upon?
RESPONSE
What happens if it cannot?
LEARNING
What does the evidence tell us about the wider system?
Each part should connect to the next.
Critical Risk.
Definition
A critical risk is an event or exposure with the credible potential to result in fatal or life-changing harm.
Critical risks should be defined clearly enough that the organisation can understand:
The source of harm.
The event or exposure.
The pathway.
Who may be exposed.
The potential consequence.
The controls required.
Example
Rather than:
Mobile equipment
Define:
Person struck or crushed through interaction with mobile equipment.
Rather than:
Working at height
Define:
Person falls from an elevated work position.
Define what can happen.
Not simply what is present.
Energy sources.
Serious harm often involves the uncontrolled transfer of energy or damaging exposure.
A useful energy taxonomy includes:
GRAVITY
Falling people, objects or materials.
MOTION
Vehicles, mobile equipment and moving objects.
MECHANICAL
Machinery, rotating equipment, crushing and entanglement.
ELECTRICAL
Electrical current and arc energy.
PRESSURE
Hydraulic, pneumatic, gas and stored pressure.
CHEMICAL
Hazardous substances and chemical reactions.
THERMAL
Heat, cold, steam and fire.
RADIATION
Ionising and non-ionising radiation.
SOUND
Harmful acoustic energy.
BIOLOGICAL
Biological agents and infectious exposure.
Serious-harm pathways.
A hazard alone doesn't explain how somebody could be harmed.
Critical Risk Management needs to understand the pathway.
SOURCE
What contains or creates the potential for harm?
EVENT / EXPOSURE
What can occur?
PATHWAY
How can the situation progress?
PERSON
How can someone become exposed?
CONSEQUENCE
What serious harm could result?
Once the pathway is understood, controls can be positioned against it.
Controls.
A control is something that changes the likelihood or consequence of the defined event or exposure.
Controls should have a clear function within the pathway.
NewEra groups barrier functions into three broad families.