Job safety analysis-The Daily Ledger

A job safety analysis (JSA) is a procedure which helps integrate accepted safety and health principles and practices into a particular task or job operation. In a JSA, each basic step of the job is to identify potential hazards and to recommend the safest way to do the job. Other terms used to describe this procedure are job hazard analysis (JHA), hazardous task analysis (HTA) and job hazard breakdown.

The terms "job" and "task" are commonly used interchangeably to mean a specific work assignment, such as "operating a grinder," "using a pressurized water extinguisher" or "changing a flat tire." JSAs are not suitable for jobs defined too broadly, for example, "overhauling an engine"; or too narrowly, for example, "positioning car jack."

Job safety analysis

Terminology and definitions

Workplace hazard categories

Workplace hazards can be allocated to three categories: Types, Groups, and Families.

Job safety analysis

Workplace hazard types

There are three hazard types. They are: Hazards to safety - anything assessed as "possible", or more likely, to cause an immediate injury or harm. Hazards to health - anything assessed as "possible", or more likely, to cause harm by repeated exposure over time. Hazards to Environment - anything assessed as "possible", or more likely, to cause an environmental pollution.

Job safety analysis

Workplace hazard groups

There are three hazard groups. They are: Physical object hazard – touch or inhale it. Hazardous work type – requires a permit, qualification etc. Duty of care breaches – Legislative and/or company contraventions.

Hazard families

There are many hazard families. The following list is not exhaustive. Many hazards will fit into more than one family. Physical, chemical, electrical, mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, biological, magnetic, thermal, gravitational, environmental, ergonomic, psychological, invisible, visible, and developing.

Workplace hazard criteria

These criteria are a set of tests to help identify genuine workplace hazards related to a task. "Clearly identifiable" means that the hazard type, group and family are clearly linked to a hazard. "A scenario is not required for its articulation" – It can be clearly described in few (generally five, or less, words). If this is not possible, it is probably not a hazard. It has an inherent likelihood of "possible" or greater – If the hazard under consideration is not inherently at least "possible", then it does not present a risk. The description is without "judgmental adjectives" – Judgmental adjectives are negative and sometimes overlap with "descriptions of absence". Adjectives such as poor, deficient, defective, scant, weak, unsound, or faulty, are not used in the hazard column. The description contains no "descriptions of absence" – Descriptions of absence are usually negative and sometimes overlap with judgmental adjectives. They include: Without, lack of, minimal, unsuitable, unavailable, inadequate, missing, non-existent.

Mechanism of injury (MOI) Mechanism of injury (MOI) is how an injury occurs. It is important because in the absence of an MoI there is no hazard. Common MOIs are "slips, trips and falls", for example: Hazard = Tool bag (in walkway) MoI = Trip (over tool bag) Injury = Bone fracture Other common mechanisms of injury include: Struck against or by Contact with or by Caught in, on, by or between Exposure to Fall to same or lower level

Likelihood

Likelihood is how often an event is reasonably and realistically expected to occur in a given time, and may be expressed as a probability, frequency or percentage.

Consequence

Consequence is the outcome of an event expressed qualitatively or quantitatively, being a loss, injury, disadvantage or gain. There may be a range of possible outcomes associated with an event. Consequence is the severity of the injury or harm that can be reasonably and realistically expected from exposure to the mechanism of injury of the hazard being rated. An implemented control may affect the severity of the injury, but it has no effect on the way the injury occurred. Therefore, when rating risk, the consequence remains the same for both the initial rating and the residual rating. People inherently tend to overestimate severity of consequence when rating risk, but the rating should be both reasonable and realistic.