Title: Hazard Analysis
Course: 2016FA-MCO-110-401 > Section: Module 6: Safety and Security

Click here for a downloadable version of this document:(EXTERNAL) Hazard Analysis

Hazard Analysis refers to the general process of evaluating the MCO environment, facility, and systems for safety risks for personnel occupying the spaces, as well as the general infrastructure itself.  Hazard analysis may be guided by specific industry principles and regulations in addition to organizational policies and insurance requirements.  The evaluation of high-level major risks such as fire, flooding, structural integrity, etc., have come a long ways in the last several decades becoming commonplace and familiar to most MCO and facilities professionals.  Personnel safety has greatly improved as well, but definitely lagging in comparison.

After reviewing infrastructure design for equipment hazards as previously discussed, the best MCO leadership teams bring the lens of safety to the daily tasks of personnel.  All tasks should be reviewed with a singular focus on identifying and mitigating hazards.  We can most successfully undertake hazard analysis with a persistent questioning-attitude whether it’s the first time thinking about an activity or the 100^th time completing it:

- Are there shock hazards?  Can we prevent them by design or do we need to provide safety gear?
- Are there access issues?  Are ladders, scaffolding, or handrails available?  Do we need safety restraints?
- Are there sharp objects or surfaces?  Can we eliminate or cover them?
- Are there health risks?
- Do we need additional personnel for this activity to be safety watches/supervisors?
- Will other onsite personnel be put at risk by this work?

This list is never ending, we should never stop asking ourselves these questions while working, and only feel satisfied when we’ve taken all practical measures to make sure systems are safe and personnel get home to their families each day whole and healthy.  MCO environments are often dangerous and it is impractical to think we can make our work as safe as sitting at a desk behind a computer, but even in emergency considerations, preventing injury or death of our teams must always trump the concerns of business interruptions (killing power to a data center, shutting down a nuclear power plant, losing research, etc.).

Objectives met:
- C6
- 6.1