Page 102 - Occupational Health & Safety, July 2018

ROBOTICS
A Simplified Method for Determining
Residual Risk in RIA TR R15.306-2016
The combination of initial risk and risk reduction measures fixes the residual risk, thus simplifying the determination of residual risk and avoiding errors. BY GARY J. GARRAHAN
96 Occupational Health & Safety | JULY 2018
www.ohsonline.com
In 2014, the Robotics Industry Association (RIA) published RIA TR R15.306 (Technical Report for Industrial Robots and Robot Systems—Safety Re- quirements—Task-based Risk Assessment Meth-
odology). The document was updated in 2015, then again in 2016. The risk assessment methodology in this document is an excellent tool for robotic safety risk assessment. Although written specifically for ro- botics, it can be easily adapted for use for other ma- chine safety hazards.
Using the methodology of TR R15.306-2016, the user:
1. calculates the initial risk of injury due to a po- tential hazard;
2. selects risk reduction measures; then
3. calculates the residual risk (i.e., the risk remain- ing after risk reduction measures are taken).
However, while the document does not indicate so explicitly, once initial risk is determined and risk re- duction measures are selected, the residual risk is es-
from RIA TR R15.306-2016
sentially fixed. The purpose of this article is to explain how the combination of initial risk and risk reduction measures fixes the residual risk, thus simplifying the determination of residual risk and avoiding errors.
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