Managing Risk: Essay and Case Study

This document explores the concept of managing risk through an essay and case study. It discusses applicable theories, hazards present, and risk evaluation plans. It also examines the role of technology in reducing errors and evaluates the efficacy of risk assessment plans. The importance of a just culture in ensuring safety is highlighted. The document provides insights into decision theory and its application in risk management.

MANAGING RISK

Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
PROJECT 1: Essay..........................................................................................................................1
Applicable Theories.....................................................................................................................3
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................5
PROJECT 2: Case Study.................................................................................................................6
1. Identify hazards present and those at risk................................................................................6
2. Examine strength of the risk evaluation plan to decrease the errors and diminish the risk.....7
3. Recognise the role of technology in using information to reduce the errors...........................9
4. Evaluate the efficacy of the risk assessment plan and comment on overall success of
company’s strategy in ensuring safety.........................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

PROJECT 1: Essay
INTRODUCTION
People are making mistakes. Mistakes can lead to crashes. For example, in Health care
mistakes can lead to fatal accidents and accidents leading to morbidity, adverse results and death
at times. One organisational solution was to identify the responsible person and report mistakes
(Cleden, 2017). Thereafter there will be individual punishments. The problem is not solved by
this punitive method. People work within an organization's processes. Every individual may be
right, but often the programme is also wrong. This perpetuates the problem instead of solving the
problem to punish people without changing the system.
Human errors can be explained as the primary cause which directly contribute in the factor of
disasters and even other accidents that create different problem for other person. The best
example of human errors is safety violations in the factory premises of nuclear industries where
maximum number of cases occurs which are related with human errors. In any of the organisation
role of employee culture plays the significant role as it guides that how any of the people is
required to work within the premises of company for the purpose of achieving the goals of an
organisation (Van Der Vegt and et. al., 2015).
Risk management doesn't just put company in a bad situation but it also create issues for
patient because it will have the bad impact on there health. This are licensed based industry
where slight mistakes can create bigger problem because it is directly connected with the health
level of patient and it is unethical and even against the law. In this condition, company even faces
the problem of financial loss and it is necessary for them to detect that what can the major topics
which can create problem for them..
The foundation of a just culture means that individual who develops and enhances
processes in the workplace has a balanced accountability. The design of such structures is
informed by engineering principles and the study of human factors
so that they are stable and secure.
There are different types of errors and they are skill based errors and mistakes. In skilled
based errors person mainly perform there task wrongly because of slip of actions, or else they
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fails to follow the rules and regulations which falls under mistakes. Talking about person
approach, in this person perform errors just because of there own mistake the fails to perform
their part of work. But, in case of system approach, it can be said that mistakes are performed just
because of the mistake of occurrence of error in system.
Swiss Cheese Model is the model which is used for the purpose of analysing the risk and risk
management. It includes the aviation safety, engineering, healthcare and many more. It is one of
the model which can help any of the business organisation for the purpose of reducing the errors
within the company that occurs on daily basis.
A patient care programme should obtain accurate investigative information to be analysed
and used to improve the protection of patients. This method is not effective if members of the
organisation are diligent and attentive and continue to be monitored. Furthermore, people should
feel they are obliged to report mistakes within the organisation. Nonetheless, a community
without responsibility is difficult for medical institutions: that mistakes require disciplinary
measures. The goal of creating a just culture is to find a balance between the extremes of
retribution and blamelessness (Hillson, 2017).
The need for an open and honest media climate is balanced by a just culture and a quality
learning environment and community. While the organisation is obligated and accountable to
employees (including patients), the quality of its choices lies with all employees. Culture requires
a change of focus from errors and results to the design and management of all employees '
behaviour.
All the given responsibility is needed to be done in appropriate manner. It is necessary to
understand in this industry chances of errors zero and all of the employee working in the
organisation should perform their task in appropriate way. For the purpose of managing the risk
within the company, it becomes important that different departments should be there which can
help to overview the performance of every staff working in the organisation (Sharma and et. al.,
2017). They can the one who can easily find the errors which are performed by other employees
of the company. There are different reasons due to which human perform errors in the work and
the reason is lack of concentration towards the given work. If company wants to detect the errors
of their employees, then they have the option to provide limited quantity of raw material and
according to that they have the option to do check the quantity of material manufactured. As
errors can be detected but in order to enhance the performance and reduce the percentage of risk,
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company should provide proper training to every employee who is working in the field of
hazardous area.
Any organisation can have the problem that they were not following the rules and
regulations of laws which can create lots of issues for them. It is necessary for business
organisation to comply with the rules and regulations of law because it will also guide them that
how they can perform better within the market. In this stage, company have the option that they
can hire one of the legal advisors who can guide them that what are the rules and regulations
which is needed to be followed by them for the purpose of achieving the goals of an organisation.
Whenever they guide it becomes the responsibility of each and every employee should make the
rule that they will follow rule-based behaviour (Bakker and et. al., 2018). It is one of the styles
which tells that people should make the habit of writing notes as it will give them the idea to take
suitable decision as per the situation raised in front of them. It will keep reminding to employees
that what is against the law and what is in the law. All of this regulation work will help business
organisation to accomplish the goals of an organisation.
Applicable Theories
Decision theory is concerned with calculating effects of uncertain decisions with the help
of decision making process. As risk management is concerned with making decisions to manage
uncertainties and their consequences and decision theory is concerned with evaluating choices
people make, it would seem that these two disciplines share a common ground and are often used
jointly. However, the only part of decision theory that is usually applied to risk management is
calculating the expected value of a risk, whilst other aspects of decision theory are seldom used.
Risk is the possibility that an event will occur and adversely affect the achievement of objectives
Risk management is the process that attempts to manage the uncertainty that influences the
achievement of objectives, with the goal of reaching the objectives and thus creating value for the
organisation in which it is applied (Shahtaheri and et. al., 2017). In order to accomplish this goal,
it is necessary to constantly apply risk management throughout all of the aspects of an entity.
Risk management attempts to identify risks and take appropriate action to diminish their
impending effects on an organisation. Decision theory is the part of probability theory that is
concerned with calculating the consequences of uncertain will be discussed, being risk appetite,
risk attitude, expected value, expected utility, loss decisions. This can be applied to state the
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objectivity of a choice and to optimise decisions. In this paragraph several aspects of decision
theory aversion and prospect theory. The common ground of risk management and decision
theory can be found in the primary issue where both attempt to deal with, which is uncertainties.
Furthermore, risk management assesses these uncertainties and manages them, which includes
prioritising of and responses to risks. When information on the decision maker’s risk taking
behaviour is available, decision theory can prioritise risks and prescribe how to react to them
numerically in case of emergency. The most striking resemblance is that both risk management
and decision theory would not exist without the presence of uncertainties. Moreover, there are
several similarities when the risk management process is studied further. Risk management
attempts to assess uncertainties and prioritise them, which decision theory is able to do for the
latter. Risk management makes decisions to manage the uncertainties, whilst decision theory can
prescribe what the correct course of action would be to deal with the uncertainty, if information
on the risk taking behaviour of the decision maker is present. Decision theory can be applied to
prioritise risks in a similar fashion to the risk matrix (Carter, 2018). When sufficient information
on the decision maker’s risk taking behaviour is available, the decision maker’s quantitative risk
matrix can be predicted by calculating the utility of the cells in the risk matrix, each of which
indicates a range of risks. The result can be used as an indication of priority, with risks in cells of
the largest absolute utility having higher priority than risks with lower absolute utility
Different risk management theories can be applied which can help that how company can
tackle with any of the situation so that any sort of problem doesn’t arise in any of the situation.
Just Culture can be also one of the option which can be beneficial for any of the company
because it can guide that how any of the firm can overcome from the problem which they face
because it is assumed that Just Culture is a concept related to systems thinking which emphasizes
that mistakes are generally a product of faulty organizational cultures, rather than solely brought
about by the person or persons directly involved. In above case, it was found that employees were
unable to do the work which was allotted to them and it was one of the biggest problem for that
but just culture can be very much helpful for them as it can easily guide that how company can
accomplish their goals and target even if they are unable to their work properly (Kinsey, 2017).
Whenever any of the company faces any sort of problem related to misconduct to their work then
it is assumed that they are unable to do the work which there were willing at the time of
incorporation. It is necessary that in this situation company must provide proper training to their
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employees that how they are required to work so that effective outcomes can be achieved
whenever organisation requires it. For the purpose of better results, training can be one of the
suitable option to achieve better results in future (Hillson and Murray-Webster, 2017). Although,
training can be one of the option but it is necessary that company should plan that how they can
manage their work and for that how they can develop new ideas and concept which can help them
in accomplish the goals which they want.
Conclusion
The common ground of risk management and decision theory can be found in the primary
issue where both attempt to deal with, which is uncertainties. Furthermore, risk management
assesses these uncertainties and manages them, which includes prioritising of and responses to
risks. When information on the decision maker’s risk taking behaviour is available, decision
theory can prioritise risks. If any of the organisation is able to bear with risk, then they can easily
sustain within the market for longer period of time. Decision making theory can easily guide that
what are the main reason that company is unable to perform the task which they must perform for
the betterment of organisation and suitable results ahead.
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PROJECT 2: Case Study
1. Identify hazards present and those at risk
 Health hazards: There are properties of chemical which can cause adverse health effects for
employees working in Genera company. This can occurs through exposure of chemical in
inhalation, skin contact or ingestion. These adverse health effects for an individual can be
short or long term. Some of acute health effects are headaches, nausea or vomiting and skin
corrosion, on the other hand long term health effects that includes asthma, dermatitis, nerve
damage, or cancer (Paul, Sarker, and Essam, 2016). This shows that there are always health
related hazards present in organisation which can create health related issues for workers.
Organisation like Genera is facing the problem as they are unable to deal with Hazards
chemical which they are producing day by day. In future period of time, it is necessary that
new plans and policies should be introduced in which employees will be given proper
facilities which can help them to maintain their health level.
 Physicochemical hazards: These are two types of properties which are present in substance
like physical or chemical. There mixture can pose risks to employees working in Genera
other than health risks also as they do not occur as result of biological interaction of the
chemical use in production. They occur due to improper handling or usage that results in
injury to workers and damage to property. Examples of physicochemical hazards are
flammable, corrosive, explosive, chemically reactive, and oxidizing chemical. Here, it is
necessary for the organisation like Genera that they should provide proper health safety to
each and every employee so that they can work for longer period of time for attaining the
goals of an organisation.
 Hazards of organic synthesis: Such substances are presents in industrial hazards and are of
three main types. First are active agents who attack and changes the composition of organic
compounds by their nature. Specially able to modify the organic compounds of the human
body thus staff working in organisation, thus produce highly toxic property (Mohanna and
Chambers, 2018). Second are intermediate compounds in most raw synthesis is often
considered by the willingness they enter into chemical mixture with other unprocessed
substance; they are active. These often confer poisonous property of great mixture in them.
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Third, the final products, although they are medicines planned to be introduced into human
body, may however create harsh poison under situation of manufacturing contact.
All these hazards are expose to workers in business and as Genera have 75% women it is
important that some measures and precautions must be taken to reduce these issues. As a
precaution, pregnant female workers should not be approved to work in manufacturing
department of organisation. There is health related risk of disclosure to harmful chemicals. Such
employees should be employed in appropriate place of work straight away after announcing
pregnancy. This is followed by efficient risk assessment for the pregnant or breastfeeding
workers and such should be given professional medicine expert (Galli, 2017). After the
assessment the employee remains in production without any risk of dangerous experience. Also,
it is necessary that company like Genera should focus that how they can overcome the problem of
Hazardous chemical which they use within company because it is one of the reason that
reputation of company reduces automatically in it.
2. Examine strength of the risk evaluation plan to decrease the errors and diminish the risk
Risk management plan can not be perfect and its success degree depends upon risk analysis,
management activities and policies. Evaluation of risk management plan is essential from first
stage so that errors can be identified and corrective actions can be taken. There are some steps
which analyse and evaluate risk management plan
Analysis of Problem: There is need that activities of risk management plan are noted so
that problems are identified. There can be issues arise in implementation of process and can have
adverse impact on whole procedure of plan. Genera company tries to minimise risk of hazardous
substances by reducing to less harmful elements so that it creates less health issues for workers.
And to sort out this respective problem, it is necessary for organisation that they must prepare the
team whose major responsibility will be just to analyse each and every problem which is faced by
the company (Cheese, 2016).
Match outcome with objectives of risk management plan: This step ensures that
results of process are achieved. This ensures effectiveness of risk management plan that it is able
to produced desired results or not. Whenever any of the company wants to perform better they are
required to ensure that they are ware about their objectives as well as risk management available
in the work. In case of Genera, it was able to minimise risk of harmful chemicals with less
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poisonous substances. This decreased waste disposal cost for company as well and time required
to decontaminate waste was also reduced. This shows that desired results were attained and there
is no need to change the respective risk management plan.
Evaluating effectiveness of activities in plan: This stage ensures that proper
investigation is carried out for each and every activity of risk management plan. This is
characterised by identifying errors in implementation process. Genera company in order decrease
effects of harmful elements changed the process that uses harmful substances (Kanavos and et.
al.,2017). This activity proves out to be effective in reducing toxic elements from daily operations
and create less harm for workers. It is only possible if company is able to determine that what are
the major benefits and what can be the negative outcome if these activities not applied without
evaluating each and every factor.
Evaluate Business Environment: It is needed that critical evaluation is conducted for
environment where risk management plan is implemented. In case of Genera the business
environment was the manufacturing unit where medicines are produced. Risk management plan
was implemented so that company can create healthy and less harmful surroundings for workers
so that it does not affect their health. Even they must know that what are the side effect of
medicines which are being used by the customers.
Make possible changes: After evaluating all activities of risk management plan, if there
are possibilities of making changes in existing risk management plan. There is need of continuous
improvements in process of reducing waste disposal and usage of harmful elements in processes
of manufacturing. More information is communicated to workers so that they are aware about
impacts of these chemicals. Company like Genera gets healthy option to adopt the changes if the
are unable to according to the plans and policies which are required by the company for
accomplishing better results (Cagliano, Grimaldi and Rafele, 2015).
Review activities: After evaluating and making changes in risk management plan it is
important to review changes. In this outcomes are matched with objectives that usage of less
harmful activities. Genera should review all of the activities which they perform within the
organisation so that they can even get the chance to do improvement wherever it is required by
the company.
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3. Recognise the role of technology in using information to reduce the errors.
The company decided to change processes that use harmful substances. This resulted
in a new central weighing room equipped with a state-of-the-art ventilation system, and
laminar flow cabinets with high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters for weighing solid
chemicals in low and intermediate toxicity categories. Chemicals are transported in sealed
packages from this room to their place of use and sucked into a closed system for product
formulation.
The company decided to acquire a glove box for working with high-potency active
pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs). HPAPIs (specifically levothyroxine) were removed
from the weighing room and moved to the production area to make it possible to limit
potential exposures to one controlled workspace (Jacob, 2017). The production area is
equipped with a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system, with high
efficiency particulate air) filters (HEPA) on the air inlets and outlets. This also protects the
environment. A personnel air-lock (PAL) system with mist showers is planned for the
production area. Anyone working with HPAPIs will wear personal protective equipment in
the form of a special suit with a protective hood and self-contained breathing apparatus.
After workers finish their work, they will pass through the PAL system and the mist
showers will remove any particles of HPAPIs. The suits will be disposed of in special
containers.
4. Evaluate the efficacy of the risk assessment plan and comment on overall success of
company’s strategy in ensuring safety
The measures resulted in:
 intensified communication among workers and managers about safety at work;
 improved control of hazardous substances in the working environment;
 greater awareness and engagement of workers about their safety and health at work
 reduction in the number of hazards while handling hazardous substances
 improved prevention of health impairments related to chemicals (Leavy, 2015).
All of this above mentioned are required to be focus be it will help to determine that
whether company is performing well or not. It does have the option to bring positive
changes it can easily determine that how any of the company should treat their employees
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whenever they work within the hazardous section of a company. Also, it will give the idea
that how company improve the health level of employees by providing all of the health and
safety equipment because it can play the supportive role for any of the employees who are
working within the factory premises.
It was difficult to find relevant data about chemicals. Some material safety data sheets
were missing, some were out of date and the overall quality of available data sheets was
not sufficient for making sound decisions on specific occupational safety and health
measures. Specifically, the problem was the poor quality of toxicological and health and
safety information available from free internet sources, and the poor quality of the safety
data sheets provided by suppliers (Bromiley and et. al., 2015). Safety data sheets are
usually not in REACH format, the classification and labelling are often not in accordance
with the (latest) CLP Regulation and basic toxicity data are often missing (‘data not
available’). An issue that companies face on a daily basis is that data on occupational
exposure limit values are not given in safety data sheets. However, there many companies
now sell such data, and the price per substance/chemical product is about EUR 600.
Initially, the degree of awareness of workers of the risks related to the management
of chemicals was low. Workers were reluctant to engage in training on safe working with
chemicals. For example, they argued that they did not need training because they had
worked with the same chemicals for years. Managers are involved in the practical aspects
of all manufacturing processes that pose potential risks to the safety of workers, especially
in relation to chemicals. They are present in the workplace and try to set good practice
examples.
Transferability
The approach taken is applicable to companies across the pharmaceutical and
chemical sectors. The following elements can be transferred to any initiative: inviting
specialist experts for special risks, awareness raising and workers’ participation in the
entire process, high-level management commitment, and solutions based on the hierarchy
of prevention measures: substitution and technical prevention should be used before
personal protection.
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CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that risk management is one of the most crucial topic which is
needed to be understand by organisation because it can guide that which type of decision
are needed to be taken in any of the situation. Risk evaluation plan is one of the best option
which can help to evaluate each and every factors and they even help to bring out the
positive outcomes for the company in future period of time.
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