Safety and Accident Prevention

Choose one mechanical hazard and one fall hazard. The hazards can be from a workplace you are familiar with, from the textbook, or from an article you find in the CSU Online Library. Create a paper containing two parts. The first part will be for the mechanical hazard, and the second part will be for the fall hazard. Complete the following elements for each part of your paper:

Describe the processes that create the hazard.
Perform a risk assessment using a risk-assessment matrix or a risk-assessment decision tree. Explain the steps required to perform the risk assessment. You can choose a matrix or tree that was covered in the lesson or textbook, or create your own. The risk assessment should be based on the assumption that no controls have been installed to date.
Evaluate the acceptability of the risk based on your risk assessment.
Recommend any controls that you believe would reduce the risk associated with the hazard.
Perform a second risk assessment based on your recommended controls.

Your completed assignment should be a minimum of three pages in length, not counting the title and reference pages. You are required to use at least two outside sources, one of which must come from the CSU Online Library. All sources used, including the textbook, must be referenced; paraphrased and quoted material must have accompanying APA citations.

Don't use plagiarized sources. Get Your Custom Essay on

Safety and Accident Prevention

Just from $13/Page

Order Essay

MOS 5101, Safety and Accident Prevention 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit V

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

2. Apply occupational safety and health concepts to workplace scenarios.
2.1 Explain the steps required to perform a risk assessment of a mechanical hazard.
2.2 Explain the steps required to perform a risk assessment of a fall hazard.

5. Evaluate common workplace hazards.

5.1 Perform a risk assessment using a risk-assessment matrix or a risk-assessment decision tree.
5.2 Evaluate the acceptability of risk after performing a risk assessment.

6. Formulate hazard abatement strategies for common workplace hazards.

6.1 Recommend controls to reduce the risks associated with a mechanical hazard.
6.2 Recommend controls to reduce the risks associated with a fall hazard.

Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes

Learning Activity

2.1
Unit Lesson
Chapter 14, pp. 307–326
Unit V Scholarly Activity

2.2
Unit Lesson
Chapter 15, pp. 329–357
Unit V Scholarly Activity

5.1

Unit Lesson
Chapter 14, pp. 307–326
Chapter 15, pp. 329–357
Unit V Scholarly Activity

5.2

Unit Lesson
Chapter 14, pp. 307–326
Chapter 15, pp. 329–357
Unit V Scholarly Activity

6.1
Unit Lesson
Chapter 14, pp. 307–326
Unit V Scholarly Activity

6.2
Unit Lesson
Chapter 15, pp. 329–357
Unit V Scholarly Activity

Reading Assignment

Chapter 14: Mechanical Hazards and Machine Safeguarding, pp. 307–326

Chapter 15: Falling, Impact, Acceleration, and Vision Hazards with Appropriate PPE, pp. 329–357

UNIT V STUDY GUIDE

Hazard Assessment and Control of
Mechanical Hazards and Falls

MOS 5101, Safety and Accident Prevention 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

Title

Unit Lesson

So far in the course, we have discussed the history of safety, causation models for safety, how to perform
an investigation, and the role of human factors in accidents. In this unit, we start to look at how those
variables apply to some hazards that you might face in your safety job—specifically mechanical hazards and
fall hazards.

Two important concepts that students must be familiar with in this course are hazards and risks. While at first
glance, these terms appear to be relatively easy to understand, many students are easily confused, using the
terms interchangeably. Hazard and risk are not identical variables. A hazard is anything that has the potential
to cause harm. The harm can be to an individual, the environment, or physical property like a structure. There
are several common definitions of risk, but the most common is the probability that the hazard will cause harm
and the severity that would be associated with the harm.

Part of the safety professional’s job is to identify hazards that are present at a workplace. There are multiple
methods for the safety professional to identify hazards, commonly referred to as a hazard analysis. We will go
into some specific hazard assessments in greater detail in Unit VII as they are associated with management
programs. For this unit, we will look at risk assessment of some specific hazards that we have already
identified.

If you are a safety professional working in an industrial manufacturing facility, you have most likely
encountered some mechanical hazards. Machines are required for most modern manufacturing processes. In
the early days of the Industrial Revolution, many machines were driven by either human or animal power. As
scientific knowledge increased, steam power became much more prevalent. Finally, with the advent of
electricity, human- and animal-powered machines became obsolete. Today, most machines are powered by
electricity, hydraulics, pneumatics, or some combination of the three. Another increasingly common variable is
the use of robotics in manufacturing processes. Each of these power sources represents a hazard in the
workplace.

The questions that the safety professional must answer are: how likely are employees to be injured when
interacting with these hazards? And, how seriously can they be injured? One concept that is important for you
to understand deals with residual risk. Optimally, a safety professional would like to create a workplace where
the risk of injury and illness was zero. This goal is unrealistic. Whenever a hazard is present in a workplace,
some level of risk will always be present. In other words, you cannot have a hazard with zero risk. Therefore,
the only way to get rid of all risk associated with a particular hazard is to remove the hazard completely from
the workplace. In most cases, this is not possible because the hazard is necessary for the production
process.

The realistic goal of the safety professional is to reduce the risk associated with a specific hazard to an
acceptable level. First, there needs to be a method of assessing the risk associated with a hazard. Then,
there needs to be a way to determine if the risk is acceptable. The concept of acceptable risk is very
subjective. What some might consider an acceptable level of risk associated with a process, others might
consider to be unacceptable. If you have a way to quantify the risk, say give it a number rating, the evaluation
may be easier.

Fortunately, there are several risk assessment methods that have already been devised and are in common
use in the safety field. One method, using a decision tree, is presented in Chapter 14 of the textbook
(Goetsch, 2019). A very common method used currently by safety professionals is the risk assessment
matrix. In this type of matrix, one axis addresses the likelihood of harm and the other axis addresses the
severity. Matrices exist with three choices per axis (3 X 3 matrix), four choices per axis (4 X 4 matrix), and five
choices per axis (5 X 5 matrix). An example of a 5 X 5 risk assessment matrix appears below.

MOS 5101, Safety and Accident Prevention 3

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title

Outcomes Likelihood

Severity
Rating

Health Property Environment Very
Likely

Likely Possible Unlikely Very
Unlikely

5 4 3 2 1

5 Death or
Permanent
Total
Disability

Catastrophic
Loss

Significant
Impact,
Irreversible

25 20 15 10 5

4 Permanent
Partial
Disability

Severe
Damage

Significant
Impact,
Reversible

20 16 12 8 4

3 Injury or
Illness
With Lost
Workdays

Significant
Damage

Moderate
Impact,
Reversible

15 12 9 6 3

2 Injury or
Illness
With no
Lost
Workdays

Moderate
Damage

Minimal
Impact

10 8 6 4 2

1 First Aid
Only or no
Treatment

Light
Damage

No Impact 5 4 3 2 1

Sample 5×5 risk assessment matrix

Looking at the matrix, you can see that the results are colored red, orange, yellow, or green. These colors
represent the level of risk, with red being the highest risk and green being the lowest risk. You may decide
that orange and red represent unacceptable levels of risk and require corrections, while yellow and green
represent acceptable levels of risk and do not require corrections. Understand though, that there are no
regulatory requirements as to which levels to rate as red, orange, yellow, or green (or even which colors to
use in a matrix), or which levels are acceptable and unacceptable. The decisions are purely subjective.

The way most safety professionals use the risk assessment matrix is to complete a risk assessment on an
identified hazard. Once the risk level is calculated, a decision is made as to whether the risk is acceptable or
unacceptable. If the risk is unacceptable, corrective measures are implemented, and the risk assessment is
repeated with the new control measures in place. This process is repeated until the residual risk has been
reduced to an acceptable level.

Let’s look at an example. Figure 14-8 (page 315) in the textbook shows a picture of a shearing machine
(Goetsch, 2019). Obviously, this is a hazard in the workplace. If we performed a risk assessment using the 5
X 5 matrix above before any controls have been added, we would probably say the likelihood of injury would
be very likely, and the severity would at least be permanent partial disability (or maybe the higher category of
death). We can all agree that a level of risk of 20 or 25 would be unacceptable. We decide to install the
controls that are shown in Figure 14-8, which require both the foot pedal and the hand button to be pushed at
the same time for the shear to operate.

When we perform a second risk assessment with the controls in place, we might now rate the likelihood as
unlikely since the operator would need to purposely place the free hand inside the machine while both
pressing the hand button with his/her other hand and stepping on the foot pedal. However, the severity would
still be the same if an accident did occur. This would reduce the risk to a score of 4, 5, 6, 8, or 10 (green,
yellow, or orange), depending on which likelihood and severity you chose. We can agree that the level of risk
has been significantly reduced. Some of you may still rate the risk as being unacceptable, and you may
implement additional controls, like installing a light curtain of boxing in the shear. You would then perform
another risk assessment after the new controls have been installed.

The primary task the safety professional would have in the above scenario would be choosing a control
method that reduced the risk to an adequate risk level and convincing management that the controls were
necessary. Using the results of a risk assessment is a good way to help convince management of the need

MOS 5101, Safety and Accident Prevention 4

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title

for the expenditure. Chapter 14 contains some examples of controls that can be used for reducing risk
associated with mechanical hazards (Goetsch, 2019).

Falls have become a major source of injuries and deaths in the United States, especially in the construction
industry. Based on the lessons we learned in our first four units, we know that falls can be caused by unsafe
conditions or unsafe behaviors (human factors). Because of the risk of injury from fall hazards, the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has implemented a regional emphasis program for
falls in the construction industry. OSHA (2017) has also published multiple standards for fall hazards.

You can perform a risk assessment for fall hazards using the same procedures we illustrated for mechanical
hazards. For example, if we were evaluating the fall hazard associated with a roofing crew working on a two-
story residential building with no controls, we would probably rate the likelihood as very likely. This rating
could be reached by reviewing the number of falls in residential roofing projects each year (information can be
obtained on OSHA’s website). The severity would probably be rated as death or permanent total disability
based on the number of deaths and permanent disabilities from falls each year. The rating of 25 would
definitely be unacceptable.

There are many control methods that are available for fall hazards. Some of the control methods are
described in Chapter 15 of the textbook. A large problem for safety professionals is getting workers to actually
use the controls. This can especially be difficult on construction projects. Most residential roofing projects you
see while driving through neighborhoods either do not use any fall protection, or use controls that would only
minimally reduce risk. For example, many workers on roofing projects use foam knee pads on which they
kneel while working as their fall protection. You can see that a risk assessment of a roofing project using that
control method would still end with a rating of 15-20, which would be unacceptable. For that reason, OSHA
recently started requiring the use of approved fall protection methods instead of these alternate methods.
Approved fall protection methods for roofing projects would be a fall protection system (think fall arrest
harness) with an anchor point on the roof or a netting system around the roof. If we performed a risk
assessment with one of these controls, the risk would be reduced significantly to a point that most of us would
say is acceptable.

References

Goetsch, D. L. (2019). Occupational safety and health for technologists, engineers, and managers (9th ed.).

New York, NY: Pearson.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration. (2017). Regional emphasis program – Fall hazards in

construction. Retrieved from https://www.osha.gov/dep/leps/RegionII/reg2_fy2018_2018-01

Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:

Turnitin Report

Formatting

Title Page

Citation

Outline

Place an Order