Chevrons Field Guide

Preventing
Serious Injury and Fatalities
Field Guide

 

 

Applying the Hazard
Identification Tool

Purpose

This field guide is a quick reference to help personnel involved in high-risk activities to identify and control the significant potential hazards unique to each activity and job.

This field guide supplements but does not replace existing permitting procedures and safe work practices. To keep it brief, not every potential hazard or prevention is listed. Apply appropriate local hazard assessment procedures, along with this guide, to comprehensively assess each job.

Field Guide Applications

• Before beginning your high-risk activity, review significant potential hazards and associated preventions.
• Refer to the field guide in all phases of hazard assessment.. during planning, permitting, implementingand closeout.
• Integrate this tool into local efforts on fatality and serious injury prevention.
• Build awareness among workers, supervisors and work leaders at meetings, field visits, shift turnovers and any other opportunity.
• Augment Managing Safe Work (MSW) field engagement and Contractor Health, Environment and Safety Management (CHESM) activities.
• Use during near-miss and incident investigations.
• Use as an Operational Excellence (OE) audit or self-audit tool for high-risk observations.

Preventing serious injuries and fatalities requires operational discipline. This means performing every task the right way every time, from initial hazard assessment through each step of the job, including post-activity review.

Hazard Identification Tool Definitions

Abbreviations and Chemical Names

CHESM

Contractor Health, Environment and Safety Management

CO

carbon monoxide

CPR

cardiopulmonary resuscitation

GFCI

ground fault circuit interrupter

H₂S

hydrogen sulfide

JHA

Job Hazard Analysis

JLA

Job Loss Analysis

JSA

Job Safety Analysis

LPSA

Loss Prevention Self Assessment

MOC

Management of Change

MSW

Managing Safe Work

N₂

nitrogen gas

OE

Operational Excellence

OEMS

OE Management System

PFD

personal flotation device

PPE

personal protective equipment

PSP

Personal Safety Plan

PSV

pressure safety valve

RCD

residual current device

SWP

Safe Work Practices

TIF

Think Incident Free

Hazard Analysis, a Requirement for All High-Risk Tasks

We eliminate or mitigate risks by identifying hazards, taking actions to reduce them and sharing what we know. Hazard analyses must be conducted by qualified people for the type of work and its potential hazards. Analysis may include..

1. Planning Phase Analysis such as Job Hazard Analysis (JHA), Safety Plan, Safety Instructions, Operating Procedures (with a review equivalent to a Planning Hazard Analysis), refinery instructions, review of safety plans, operator checklists or equivalent.
2. Job Safety Analysis (JSA), Job Loss Analysis (JLA) and JHA or equivalent including onsite review.
3. Personal hazard assessment tools, including Think Incident Free (TIF), Personal Safety Plan and Loss Prevention Self Assessment (LPSA) or equivalent.

Identify the Hazards and Take Action

• The first safeguard is you. To reduce the odds for human error, you must address any factors that may interfere with your readiness to perform well and to react effectively to unexpected events or changes.
• Review and follow the procedure for the task.
• Question what you would do in an emergency and include that information in the JSA document.
• Discuss the JSA with your co-workers to ensure it addresses the hazards associated with the work, that you understand what you will be doing and that you know how to do it safely.
• If the job changes.. Stop, evaluate and revise the JSA as needed. Don't make snap decisions.

Potential Significant Hazards

A potential significant hazard is any condition, action or object that has the potential for an unplanned release of, or unwanted contact with, an energy source that may result in a serious or fatal injury.

Energy source Hierarchy of Controls

Follow a hierarchy of controls approach to reduce the risk of a serious or fatal injury. Where possible, it is always best to first eliminate the hazard and then apply lowerlevel controls as needed. Based on the energy Reference(s), the hierarchy of controls is..

1. Remove the energy Reference(s).
2. Prevent the release of energy.
3. Protect from the release.
4. Use Stop-Work Authority.

Stop-Work Authority

All employees and contractors have the authority and responsibility to stop work that does not comply with the Tenets of Operation2 or that presents an imminent hazard - without the threat of reprisal. Perform these steps in sequence if you feel your own work or the work of others is not safe..

1. Decide to intervene (take ownership).
2. Stop the unsafe act.
3. Notify immediate supervisors.
4. Resolve the issue.
5. Resume work (or stay shut down until risk is mitigated).
6. Share what you learned.

Do it safely or not at all.
There is always time to do it right.

Human Performance

Human error has been shown to be a factor in nearly every serious incident and fatality. Your focus on improving human performance is critical to achieving an incident-free operation.

Distractions Can Happen to Anyone

In fact, the more familiar we are with the task, the easier it is to lose focus. Loss of focus can lead to an error. Even with established worker qualifications and the best tools and experience to guide us, we must also be personally ready to perform each job at our highest capacity.

The risk for error and injury goes up at all experience levels when individual or organizational factors, task demands or the work environment interfere with our ability to focus on our tasks.

Assess the Situation and Take Action

If you can answer "yes" to any of the assessment questions on the facing page, it may affect incidentfree job performance. Preventive actions you or your supervisor can take to reduce the risks to working safely include..

• Get help.
• Get clarification.
• Get focused.
• Defer the work.

Human Performance Assessment Questions