Glossary
Risk Assessment
Risk Assessment is the process of identifying hazards, evaluating the risk related to the hazard and determining appropriate measures to control or prevent accidents from happening
It is important as it helps make people aware of the hazards and risks associated to that activity or location, determine if the control measures are enough or can be improved, prevent injuries from happening at the design and planning stage, prioritize hazards and control measures.
The purpose of risk assessment is to completely remove a hazard or minimize the level of risks by adding precautions or control measures. All of these will create a safer workplace.
Quantitative Risk Assessment
Quantitative Risk Assessment is a structured and systematic approach to identifying risks associated to the hazards present. It provides more information on the risk profile of the operation and location of activity taking place. It is used as a basis for decision-making in the design and operation of a plant.
Qualitative Risk Assessment
Qualitative Risk Assessment makes use of a relative of descriptive scale to determine the occurrence of an accident related to a hazard followed by identifying any specific risks which requires special attention.
Qualitative vs Quantitative Risk Assessment
Qualitative Risk Assessment gives us a non-numerical value to describe the consequences of hazards (insignificant, minor, moderate, major or catastrophic) and likelihood of hazards occurring (rare, unlikely, possible, likely or almost certain) to form a 5X5 matrix to evaluate which category (low risk, moderate risk, high risk or extreme risk) the event falls in.
However, Quantitative Risk Assessment involves the quantification of the severity (fatalities per event) and probability of hazards (events per year) and multiplying the two to obtain the magnitude of the risk, which is also known as individual fatality risk (fatalities per year).
Even though Quantitative Risk Assessment is more objective compared to Qualitative Risk Assessment, it is more troublesome to obtain the values needed to calculate the magnitude of the risk. Hence, for some RA, there is no necessity for the RA to be objective and Qualitative RA may be a better option as it can be formulated faster.
Requirements for a complete Quantitative Risk Assessment report according to National Environment Agency, NEA (Guidlines for Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) study)
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Introduction of the activity ( transportation, storage, handling etc.)
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Hazard Identification
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Consequence Analysis
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Toxic
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Fire (Radiation)
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Explosion (Overpressure)
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Dispersion Analysis
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Frequency Analysis
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Individual Risk Fatality