Time Out

We continue to have incidents where our JHA didn’t cover the hazard. Sometimes we try to fit too many procedural steps into the JHA. The target should be 6 steps or less. If we try to make our steps too general, we tend to leave out enough detail to capture the hazards.

I remember the day when our JHA was 17 pages long and ineffective. When we try to fit too many steps into our JHA's it causes us to miss obvious hazards. We have to use our JHA's as living documents that can address extra steps and changes when necessary. Let’s break down our operations into the tasks that we are doing today and then get to the right level of detail.

Try something out today. Call a TIME OUT on your operation and look at the tasks that your crew members are working on. Are they addressed on the JHA? If not, find a way to keep this from happening. Talk with the crew and get their feedback on why it happens. Empower them with the ability to stop and add things to the JHA when new tasks are needed.

The whole reason we do JHA's are to give the crew an opportunity to understand the operation and participate in identifying the hazards and the precautions.

Let's not say we had a good JHA but we left out the step or task that got somebody hurt. You either had a good JHA or you didn't. If you aren't creating good JHA's, make it a goal this week to put some extra time and thought into them.

Call a TIME OUT this week, get some feedback, make adjustments, and keep your crews safe.