Cost Analysis and Budgeting: Risk Analysis and Hazard Control

摘要

Many of you have heard it said that "The business of business is business" (Davis, 2005). Well, I agree with that statement. I'll also add that "the business of safety is business." As safety professionals, it is our responsibility to assure that management: 1. Is aware of safety problems that may exist or have the potential to exist; 2. Knows the importance of solving those problems in terms of human and monetary loss; 3. Is cognizant of the options available to them for solving the problems; 4. Has been clearly informed of the costs and, hopefully, the cost benefits of solving the problems. As safety professionals, our responsibility is simple. We are hired for two clearly defined roles: to monitor and advise. We monitor by observing the workplace, comparing what we observe to established standards, and measuring the deviation from those standards. For example, we collect information from members of front-line management on near-misses they have observed in their own work area. Based on our own experience, or that of the supervisors, we attempt to estimate how often the near-misses occur, and how many incidents or accidents may occur during the year based on those near-misses. "We've been doing this for years and we haven't had an accident yet," is a common response we often hear from supervisors when we're trying to build a case to fix a potential problem. Once we've been made aware of a problem, through personal observation, observation of others, or reports we've read in professional journals, it is our responsibility to investigate the problem and determine the depth and the breadth of that problem-not only in terms of dollars and cents, but in terms of human suffering as well. Both need to be accounted for, but we'll dwell on the latter in this presentation. Once the breadth and depth of the problem has been established, we, as safety professionals, generate possible solutions to the problem and present those to management with the costs and benefits of implementation of each. We give them advice on what problems need to be addressed and the most effective manner of addressing them. Let's attack this problem systematically by working our way through each of the above four steps and examining approaches to each.