Page 84 - Occupational Health & Safety, July 2017

HAZARD ANALYSIS
Job Hazard Analysis Process Redesign: Integration of Job Hazard Analysis and Work Planning Processes
Integrating the JHA and Work Planning processes reinforced the new philosophical approach for shifting responsibility for working safely to those responsible for planning and actually performing the work.
BY RANDY HANCOCK Job Hazard Analyses (JHAs) are used through- out industry in a variety of forms and formats. Typically performed in advance of accomplish- ing a particular task, they identify potential hazards and recommend mitigation to control the hazards. Consequently, they are an important tool in
ensuring work is accomplished in a safe manner.
A large employer was recently struggling to imple- ment a JHA program. They had a number of shops, each with specialized equipment, tools, and expertise. Their approach was basically a sound one: First, each shop was to prioritize their tasks according to what they thought was their greatest risk. Once this was done, JHAs would then be prepared in order of that priority. When completed, a catalogue of generic JHAs would exist covering each shop’s routine tasks. As en- gineers planned work, the JHAs would be referenced for hazard controls and mitigations. Hazard controls were to be inserted in Work Planning documentation, and the Safety Department would review these docu- ments to ensure they were properly incorporated—a
straightforward approach.
plans, but they were not based on any analysis. Conse- quently, the level of detail and completeness of the plans varied widely. When the Safety Department re- viewed them for approval, rejection/rework was com- mon. Engineering personnel responsible for Work Planning were frustrated with having to constantly rework their documents; the Safety group was, in turn, frustrated that the JHAs were not completed and reflected in the Work Planning documents.
And so a new strategy for preparing JHAs was in- troduced. It reflected a different philosophy for how safety was to be accomplished for this company. It em- phasized safe, error-free performance of work—i.e., that work done properly meant work was also done safely. Safety was to be treated like any other compo- nent of properly executed work—i.e., just as engineers planned for the appropriate personnel, tools, and re- sources to properly accomplish the task at hand, Safe- ty should also be planned into the job. This approach addressed a faulty assumption that is present in many companies and organizations: that safety is the re- sponsibility of the Safety Department. This company’s philosophy shifted the responsibility for safety to those charged with getting the work accomplished and shifted the Safety team’s role to one where they supported the engineers and technicians in achieving the goal of error-free—and therefore safe—perfor- mance of work. Safety department personnel would serve as technical consultants for interpreting and ap- plying safety requirements and also verify compliance with those requirements. As stated, this philosophical approach drove a number of changes in how JHAs would be accomplished.
First, instead of treating JHAs and work planning as separate efforts, the two were combined. The Safety function became a part of the Work Planning process alongside the other elements of properly executed work.
80 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY 2017
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But once this program was rolled out, it became apparent that implementation would not be as easy or straightforward as originally thought. It was hard to convince management to provide the necessary re- sources to prepare large batches of JHAs for future work that may, or may not, ever materialize. With only a partial catalogue of JHAs to drawn from, there were few consistent hazard controls available for engi- neering to reference when preparing Work Plans. The result was that hazard controls were inserted into the
Guiding Principles:
Work done properly is work done safely.
The Safety team’s role is to support personnel in achieving the goal of safe, error-free perfor- mance of work.