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A
certain degree of risk is unavoidable in life. Every day,
all across the country, people cross busy streets, ride
elevators, work with dangerous chemicals, and use public
transportation. Because they do these things every day
without consequence, they do not consider the inherent
risks, rather, they accept them. Unacceptable risks are
those such as the chemical release in Bhopal, India that
killed more than 3,000 people in 1984. Events such as
this illustrate what can happen when risk is not adequately
considered.
In addition to catastrophic consequences to people, the
environment, and property, professional reputations suffer
when unacceptable risks are allowed to occur. In today's
competitive marketplace, a product or process failure
can derail an individual or company's credibility. It
can cost you time, money, and possibly a valued customer.
Risk can never be zero, and your job as an engineer is
to consider risks in design, construction and operations,
so that other people will find them acceptable. This is
known as risk management.
Risk management is the systematic identification, analysis,
treatment, monitoring and communication of risk. It provides
the means for you to understand risk, estimate its magnitude,
and manage it in the most efficient manner.
Some of the questions which are important to explore are:
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What
is risk? |
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How
do we measure or estimate risk? |
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How
do we identify a potentially hazardous scenario? |
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How
do we estimate the likelihood (probability) of a
potentially hazardous event? |
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How
do we estimate the consequences and their impact? |
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How
do we manage risk? |
The
responses to these questions may critically affect
safety, investment, and operational decisions. In the
next few sections, we attempt to briefly answer these
questions.
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