What is Risk Assessment?

Table of Contents:

• Understanding Risk Assessment
• Why is Risk Assessment So Important?
• The 4 Key Steps of an Effective Risk Assessment
• Streamline Risk Assessments with Cryotos CMMS
• Conclusion

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Risk assessment to many facility managers is a new, irritating administrative headache; it is a paperwork mountainous to fill in just to please auditors. This is a reactive, check-box type of solution resulting in data silos, exposing your workforce, physical assets, and bottom line to unforeseen incidents.  
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The leaders in the industry are abandoning bare-minimum compliance for proactive safety cultures. Once the risk assessment process is a constant and integrated flow, it will not be a dusty document anymore but rather a strategic tool. Anticipating and preventing risks that may lead to expensive downtime has become the basis of a resilient operation.  
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It is here that intelligent technology gets into the picture. Organizations integrate risk assessment into the daily maintenance processes by replacing paper scribbling with a mobile-first technology such as Cryotos CMMS. Empower the frontline teams to seize hazards in real-time, automate safety measures, such as LOTO, and transform compulsory compliance into a competitive advantage.  
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The process of risk assessment involves three steps, which start with hazard identification, followed by hazard assessment, and end with hazard control implementation. The process requires a full examination of your workplace environment together with your daily operational procedures and outside factors to find all potential situations that could cause employee injuries, equipment breakdowns, or operational downtime.  
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To truly understand the process, it helps to distinguish between two commonly confused terms:
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• A Hazard: This is anything that could be harmful (e.g., exposed wiring, poisonous chemicals, a wet floor, or an unguarded machine).  
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• A Risk: This is the likelihood that the hazard will be harmful, actually, and the intensity of the effect that it may have.  
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Risk assessment is very simple and works as follows: It is a prediction of damage before it hits, and placing controls in place to protect your people and business continuity.
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Risk assessment is the solution between a risky environment and a safe and profitable plant. The application of an effective risk assessment strategy has a number of vital advantages:
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• Protects Your Workforce: The main objective of any safety program is to make sure that all the technicians, operators, and contractors come home safe after the working shift.  
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• Ensures Regulatory Compliance: Documented risk assessment holds your organization on the right side of OSHA, ISO, and local safety laws, saving you a huge fine and ensuring legal responsibility.  
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• Minimizes Operational Downtime: By detecting hazards before they lead to disastrous equipment failure or accidents at work, the costs of unexpected production stoppage are reduced.
   

• Fosters a Proactive Safety Culture: It will develop trust, increase morale, and promote the ownership of safety measures in the teams when the management takes the lead in identifying and eliminating hazards.  
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Risk assessment may be viewed as a very technical task that can only be developed by experts in the field of safety, but it is indeed a very rational one. You can learn it within a 4-step model that is not hard to manage:
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Step 1: Identify the Hazards

It is impossible to deal with a threat that you are unaware of. This is done by walking around the floor; no planning or guide can be used in its entirety. Observe the physical environment, the condition of equipment, and the way technicians do what they have to do.  
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• Consult your team: The frontline employees are more familiar with the traps than anybody. Brainstorm and go through previous near-miss reports.  
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• Be specific: Do not use such abstract terms as machine failure. In its place, indicate the hazard, e.g., overheating of Conveyor Motor B because of dust build-up.  
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Step 2: Assess and Evaluate the Risks

The process of hazard identification requires subsequent hazard ranking. The risk matrix should be used to assess each threat by evaluating its two main factors: Probability, which measures incident likelihood, and Severity, which evaluates potential outcome impact.
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• Prioritize: The high-severity hazard that has a high probability of occurrence requires immediate resolution through resource allocation. The work must stop until the risk has been resolved because the risk presents an unacceptable threat.
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Step 3: Implement Control Measures

It is where analysis is converted into action. The risk is to be minimized to an acceptable level with the help of the Hierarchy of Controls:
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1. Eliminate: Is it even feasible to eliminate the hazard (like cease to use a toxic solvent)?  
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2. Substitute: Is it ever possible to swap the hazard for something less dangerous?  
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3. Engineering Controls: Is there a possibility to protect folks from this hazard (e.g., machine guards)?  
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4. Administrative Controls: Are there any chances that people can ever be changed concerning problematic working practices (e.g., very strict Lockout-Tagout (LOTO) procedures)?  
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5. PPE: If nothing else works, then, for the maintenance of the worker as a last alternative, Personal Protective Equipment can be provided.
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Step 4: Record, Monitor, and Review

A risk assessment is a document that lives and breathes. In most areas, it is legally required to record your findings, and the job is not over at this point.  
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• Monitor: Check the progress of your new controls so as not crippling production.  
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• Review: Have an ongoing review of the assessment, particularly with the installation of new equipment, change of processes, or in the event of an accident.
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The resistance of obsolete tools is the greatest obstacle to proper risk management. Using clipboards, spreadsheets, or fragmented systems results in lost information, reviews, and a reactive safety culture.  
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Cryotos CMMS makes your dormant safety policies real-life and daily workflows, so that the risk assessments are not added to your maintenance processes as a secondary consideration. This is the way Cryotos makes your team stronger:  
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• Mobile-First Hazard Reporting: In the Cryotos mobile app, field technicians are able to conduct risk assessments in the field. They are able to take pictures of risks, mark the areas of danger, and set up a request to fix the problems immediately on the floor of the facility.  
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• Automated Safety Workflows: Have safety checks as part and parcel of every work order. Using Cryotos, it is possible to computerize the Permit to Work (PTW) and Lockout-Tagout (LOTO) processes, and guarantee that technicians are not able to start a high-risk procedure without taking an active step of accepting and clearing the necessary safety procedures.  
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• Audit-Ready Documentation: Goodbye to disorganized filing cabinets. Cryotos gives you the strictest, live, and centralized audit trail on all safety inspections, hazard reports, and management approvals, keeping your facility 100 percent compliant and audit-ready 24/7.
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Risk assessment does not function as a document that binds your operations because it requires active protection of your most valuable assets, which include your staff and your equipment. Organizations can use safety as their operational excellence driver when they teach their workers risk management fundamentals and provide them with essential tools.  
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Your facility and your employees will face danger because you use outdated spreadsheets and disconnected paper forms.  
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Ready to digitize your risk assessments and build a seamless, proactive safety culture? Schedule a free demo of Cryotos CMMS today to see how our mobile-first platform can automate your safety workflows, ensure 100% audit readiness, and protect your bottom line.