Friday, August 25, 2017

Effective Ways To Carry Out Job Safety Analysis Procedures

By Helen Watson


JSA is the term usually used for Job safety analysis. Some industries may use the term Job or Task Risk Assessment, Job Hazard Breakdown, Job Safety Environment Analysis, Job Handling Analysis or JHA for their job safety analysis procedures.

No matter the name your company choose to give the procedure, JSA is a vital part of any safety program. It is meant to prevent accidents at the workplace. It is systematically looking at the steps involved in executing a particular job so that the hazards or safe work practices in it can be identified, assessed and documented.

The effectiveness of a JSA can vary greatly depending on the knowledge of the people completing it and the quality of the JSA procedures. It is possible to get trained in order to improve the quality and consistency of JSA at your work place.

It is not just the JSA form that makes people safe during operations, but the processes that the crew is taken through before developing the JSA. It is of almost no value to point out hazard and come up with controls if serious hazard are overlooked. Controls should always be in place and maintained, those controls should be appropriate and requirements should be well communicated.

The JSA is not just a piece of paper with written instructions on how a task is to be completed. If it is created well and used as it is supposed to, it is a wonderful tool. However, if a JSA is created poorly, it would not be able to prevent any injury, but may become a hazard.

A poor JSA may give the impression that all appropriate controls have been put in place and the job is safe. As a result, team members may relax, become less cautious and fall into the trap of unidentified and uncontrolled hazards that are waiting for them.

It is always recommended that the JSA be carried out by those who are very familiar with the job at hand. Those to attend the JSA should consist of workers with knowledge about the job, those who would take part in the current task, the supervisors and possibly relevant specialists. Normally, the team leader is responsible and should ensure appropriate JSA measures are followed.

The team leader should be competent in developing, facilitating and writing JSAs. The team leader does not necessarily have to be familiar with the task under analysis if the selected team members are. The team should involve those who are doing the job and not those who happen to be available at the time.

By involving a group of people who know the job well and take active part in the task during JSA, the possibility of skipping a step or overlooking a hazard is decreased. The likelihood of effective and efficient controls would be increased. Workers who are active in the job know how to use protective devices, and identify unsafe shortcuts.

If possible, all employees who will be involved in the job should contribute to the development of the JSA. This is an effective way of encouraging employees to participate in hazard identification and risk control. It also builds a culture of understanding and compliance with the rules.




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