The art of well-executed Risk Management is to identify, assess and mitigate any kind of risk that could happen in your business. To help you along, we list 8 do’s and don’ts for a successful Risk Management process. To top it all off, we give you the ultimate tip to foolproof your efforts.

DO: Identify, Assess, and mitigate

Risk Management has three large components:

• Identifying possible risks
• Assessing the probability that these risks will happen and what their impact would be
• Mitigating risks according to their priority.

If you execute these steps with a tried and tested method in mind, Risk Management is a large asset for any business. It empowers you with tools and insights to go through a sound decision-making process. It takes into account anything that might constitute a risk.

DON’T: Only take a reactive approach

The goal of Risk Management is to reduce both the possible occurrence and the potential negative impact of a risk. For this, you need to take a proactive stance. It’s better to be safe than sorry, after all.

DO: Rank certain risks over others

When identifying risks, it is necessary to qualify them according to their priority. Which risks are more imminent to occur? Which have the greatest impact? By qualifying risks, you can:

• Give priority to further investigate more pressing risks
• Take necessary preventive actions
• Act on the risks that are more likely to occur or have a more severe impact, without losing sight of the other potential risks.

DON’T: Ignore previous insights

Risk assessments deliver valuable insights. With today’s insights, you can prevent tomorrow’s risks from happening. If you don’t do anything with these observations, your risk management won’t come off the ground and your efforts will be wasted. Think of it as knowing that there will be an 80% chance of rain, but not taking your umbrella with you when you go out. The result? You’ll get wet and wish you had taken preventive measures.

DO: Identify all potential dangers

The best starting point for Risk Management? The idea that everything can constitute a danger. Every change in the workplace can present a new risk. What do you do with this information? It’s pretty simple: you need to identify all risks and possible dangers so you can guarantee safety for your workers. Next, you need to determine actions to prevent the risks from happening or ensure a fast response if an accident does occur.

DON’T: Only focus on production safety

Risk Management is related to the physical well-being and mental health of employees and contractors. It’s also related to process safety and production quality. It’s not about one or the other, but both.

To assure the safety of employees and of the process and production line, you should:

• Identify, analyze, and eliminate to the highest degree any risk that might constitute a danger to workers or the production

• Put in place measures that limit identified risks and danger. This includes taking into account any change in the workplace and checking these changes for new risks.
• Take preventive actions to ensure that all products (in all shapes, forms, and sizes) are of the same quality and the process can run its course.

DO: Keep a clear overview of all actions (both preventive and corrective)

Fast responses if an accident does happen are fundamental. But what is almost as bad as not taking adequate action is not having a central place where all the actions are stored. For effective Risk Management, you need a good overview of all actions and their effects. This also includes all inspections done in the workplace and a database for photo material related to ‘near-misses’.

DON’T: Have an unclear process and divided responsibilities

Your Risk Management efforts might fail for one simple reason: your process is unclear and no one is sure who is responsible. When it’s not clear who has the end responsibility all taken actions (both corrective and preventive) are erratic. Besides increasing the risk of dangerous situations in your plant, you are also at risk of not being compliant.

PRO TIP: Go digital

The secret to improving your Risk Management efforts that ticks all the boxes mentioned above is going digital. With a digital solution, your Risk Management will be easier, more logical, and compliant with any procedure or policy.

The advantages of digital Risk Management:

• You can identify, assess, mitigate and qualify all risks in one single platform overview
• Logical workflows, including assigning tasks, doing follow-ups, and reporting
• Clear audit trail
• Seamless integration with other tools (reporting, Incident Management,…)

 

And, coincidence or not, TenForce has you covered for this last point. For the past 20 years, we’ve been working with manufacturing companies in the chemical, food production, and FMCG industries to help them digitize their processes. Get in touch if you want to learn more about our Risk Management solutions.