Job safety analysis

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) 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."

Workplace Hazards are in three categories:

There are two hazard types. They are:

There are three hazard groups. They are:

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, Psychological, Invisible, Visible, and Developing.

The criterion is a set of standards to assist in deciding to include, or exclude, certain identified hazards related to our task.

The workplace hazard criterion used to identify genuine workplace hazards is:

One other very important and defining facet of a hazard is its ‘mechanism of injury’ (MoI).

It is important because in the absence of an MoI it isn't a hazard, and this is about job 'hazard' analysis.

The MoI is the method in which an injury occurs.

All hazards have an MoI.

Common MoIs are ‘slips trips and falls’.

Other common MoIs include:

Likelihood is expressed as the number of occurrences of an event in a given time.

It may be expressed as chance, frequency or a percentage. Either way, the application of the rule of being reasonable and realistic is paramount.

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 consists of two factors. The first is the mechanism of injury covered above. The second factor is the estimation of the severity of the injury or harm that can be reasonably and realistically expected from exposure to the obvious mechanism of injury of the hazard being rated.

The consequence is quantified using a severity of consequence scale.

It is acknowledged that an implemented control may lower the severity of the injury, it may also increase it, either way, 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 lean toward a higher than actual consequence when rating risk, so remember to apply the rule of being reasonable and realistic.

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Wikipedia