Manufacturing Risk Assessment Form

Why You Need a Manufacturing Risk Assessment Form

A manufacturing risk assessment form is a critical tool for identifying, evaluating, and controlling potential hazards in your production environment. With it, you can document safety concerns before they cause incidents and ensure that you manage risks proactively.

Also, using a risk assessment form can help you meet regulatory requirements, improve workplace safety, and prevent disruptions to operations. The purpose of this type of form is to break down a process into its separate steps and identify any risks present within them. During this exercise, you categorize risks based on their severity level. That way, you can prioritize which risks to control first as you implement safety measures and process improvements.

What to Include in Your Form

Your risk assessment form should cover the entire process so you have all the data in one spot. An Excel spreadsheet is a great tool for organizing the information in a user-friendly way. Here are some examples of what you might include in your form:

• Description of the task, equipment, or process
• Identification of potential hazards and who may be affected
• Assessment of likelihood and severity level
• Existing control measures currently in place
• Recommended additional controls to reduce risk
• Risk rating before and after controls
• Review date and responsible person for follow-up

How to Do a Risk Assessment

The first step in a risk assessment is to review the task or process you’re assessing. This involves talking to frontline workers who perform the tasks on a regular basis. Ask them about the risks they observe and whether they have any recommendations for controlling them. Observe workers in action to come up with your own list of risks.

Look at past incidents or near misses in the process to figure out where the most hazards exist. If you use incident reporting software or spreadsheets, look for patterns or trends within the work area or specific process that will help you better understand the issues.

Using all this information, categorize risks within your form based on a severity matrix. From there, you can decide what to focus on as you try to improve work conditions for your team.