Method and management system

How is a risk assessment carried out?

Five steps: gather the hazards, write down who could be harmed and how, rate the risk with the controls already in place, decide on further controls with an owner and a date, then review. The method you pick does not change these steps; it only defines how the rating is produced.

The five steps

The order is the same in every method. The job is written out step by step and each step is searched for hazards: machinery, substances, environment, posture, work pattern. Then it is recorded who could be harmed and how — not "injury", but "hand drawn into the rotating shaft while the guard is open".

In the third step the risk is rated with the existing controls in place. The most common mistake is to score as if nothing were in place and then list that same control as an action. In the fourth step controls are decided, each with an owner and a date, because an action without a date never closes. The fifth step is review: when the work changes, after an incident, and at the interval you set.

Why the record matters

An assessment is not a document but a chain of records: hazard → risk → control → verification. The last link is missing in most organisations; nobody measures whether the control was really applied and whether it lowered the risk. In Optifora every control is tied to a task and every task to a verification, and any open link stays on the list.

Manage this in Optifora

Optifora is not a single program but a compliance platform assembled from modules. The catalogue states which module is ready today and which is on the roadmap.

See what Optifora is