Risk assessment

Abstract

A hazard is anything that has the potential to do harm, source of possible injury or damage to health. The likelihood of the hazard causing harm and the degree of harm that could be caused we would call the risk. For the purposes of the Machinery Directive prEN 1050, the European Norm Standard on safety of machinery (risk assessment) describes risk assessment as a series of logical steps that enable designers and safety engineers to examine in systematic way the hazards arising from the use of machinery so that the appropriate safety measures can be selected. Most, if not all of the EN Standards in support of the Machinery Directive lead to the conclusion that risk assessment should be carried out at the design stage and that the machine should be inherently safe whenever possible. The author looks at the methods of quantified risk assessment and the hazard rating number system.