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Companies would not run their businesses without insurance. The consequences are far too high. So why would they gamble with the health of their employees and businesses by not conducting risk assessments on their machinery?

Failing to do a risk assessment on your equipment can hurt a company in multiple ways. There are the medical costs of the injured employee(s), lawsuits, loss of production, and the cost of retrofitting in a hurry, not to mention bad PR, increased scrutiny from regulatory agencies and increases in insurance rates.

Who gets blamed when someone gets hurt on the job? "When you don't do [a risk assessment] and somebody gets hurt, it's tough to defend," says Scott Krumwiede, manager of Manufacturing Performance Solutions, RWD Technologies, a company that develops, implements, and supports products and services used to deliver safety training and training solutions, IT consulting services, and organizational performance improvement. On the other hand, an attempt to mitigate the risks of a machine to the employees can also mitigate the risk to the owner. "If you're under litigation, having performed a risk assessment at least shows you made an attempt to avoid injuries," says Krumwiede. "Though this doesn't release you from liability, it might lessen it."

Insurers tend to look with favor on companies that pay attention to safety. "Having a risk assessment could get you a lower rate," says Krumwiede, "because it shows you're trying to mitigate against potential problems; however, they won't lower your rate until you prove you've taken the necessary steps."

Public perception
A well-publicized accident, with or without injuries, can give a company a black eye that may persist for a long time. Consider just two examples: Bhopal and the Exxon Valdez. Both created a flood of bad publicity for the companies involved. And both were avoidable.

The effects of bad publicity can last a long time. "When car companies have their recalls," Krumwiede says, "if you're an owner of one of those vehicles, if it's a serious recall you think about it next time you're out in the market."

One likely consequence of a serious injury accident is a visit from OSHA. "When incidences occur, especially if it's on a piece of equipment," says Krumwiede, "they (OSHA) want to see documentation. One of the first things they ask for is a risk assessment."

A wise company will have documented risk assessments at three points in the life of a piece of equipment: the design stage, when it's built, and when it's installed. "OSHA will want to see these, to know that a company has at least taken a look at this, and tried to mitigate as many of the issues (risks) as possible. And when you can produce nothing they're really going to start digging."

Waiting on the investigation
It is difficult to predict how long production will be stopped for a post-accident investigation and the corrective measures that come from it. If the problem is fairly obvious—say an inventive operator circumvents safety features to get parts out the door faster—it won't take long to find. But sometimes things are not so obvious. And investigators usually won't stop until they have figured it out.

And after the investigation the owner must set things right, and install the proper safety precautions, which can be time-consuming. "It could be as simple as adding a guard, or it could be as complex as redesigning the entire control system to handle things, and then installing new safeties," Krumwiede says.

Remediation
The operational cost associated with failing to do a risk assessment can be severe. Let's say an accident has occurred, someone has been hurt, and production has stopped pending an investigation. Production cannot resume until the danger has been mitigated; but without a risk assessment it's difficult to know where to start. And the final risk assessment—after installation—is as important as the first two, because there are safety-related factors that do not appear until the machine is ready to run.

"When we are brought in to address these situations and are not aware of the complete process that the owner is going to use—only knowing what the machine is capable of—we have to consider a number of issues that may impact safety if that machine is placed in a different environment as part of the remediation process. These issues might revolve around how it interfaces with upstream and downstream equipment," says Krumwiede. "That's why, once you get it fully installed and running, you take a look at how the machine interfaces with everything else."

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