Operational Risk Management

1457 Words6 Pages
James Reed Sean Howard, Bruce Poole Industrial Safety and CPR 12 January 2012 Operational Risk Management “Fire, fire, fire!”, the announcement from Damage Control Center rings out over the 1MC the ship-wide intercom, the ship is now in danger with the flight deck a conflagration of flame, a precious air crew has perished, and sixty million dollars of taxpayers’ money has become a crumpled mass of burning metals and hazardous waste. Accidents like this one have changed the way the American public perceives mishaps in the military; these horrific accidents with mass casualties, and billions of dollars in lost, irreplaceable equipment. Lessons bought and paid for in blood forced the United States Navy into making a massive effort to prevent and mitigate these destructive events. The Navy’s efforts led to a breakthrough, a paradigm shift in the fundamental mindset of accident prevention. The Navy’s mindset of fixing the problem after an accident (a knee-jerk reaction) was replaced by a proactive mindset, one of preemptive action. The fundamental key to the concept of Risk Management (RM) is in this preemptive action, prevention of an accident prior to its occurrence. Risk Management was born from: the concept that every accident is preventable, at some point the chain of causality can be broken, the need to save lives and equipment, and the need to conserve the nation’s precious resources. One of the most important facets of Risk Management is the Operational Risk Management (ORM ) process, this two stage process consists of five continuous steps: the planning stage; identifying the hazards, assessing the hazards, and the action stage; making risk decisions, implementing controls, and supervision ( OPNAVINST 3500.39C en 1 pg 5). The Department of the Navy Operational Risk Management Instruction OPNAVINST 3500.39C states, “Hazard identification is the
Open Document