Glossary · Risk assessment and risk reduction
Hazard identification
Also known as: identification of hazards
German: Gefährdungsermittlung
In machine safety under ISO 12100, hazard identification is the step of risk analysis in which all reasonably foreseeable hazards, hazardous situations and hazardous events are systematically identified across all phases of the machine's life and all tasks.
- Machine safety
- Risk assessment
In one sentence
Hazard identification systematically finds the hazards, hazardous situations and events of a machine across all life phases and tasks.
Example
For a palletizer, the team walks through transport, installation, production, cleaning, jam clearing and maintenance and lists crushing, shearing, falling loads and stored energy hazards for each task.
How it applies
- Method: Hazard identification follows the determination of Machine limits. It combines task identification with checklists of hazard types, such as the list in ISO 12100, and considers intended use and Reasonably foreseeable misuse.
- Scope: All life phases count, including transport, setting, cleaning, fault finding, maintenance and decommissioning. Many accidents happen during tasks that the design team did not consider.
- Results: Each identified hazard is recorded with the affected persons and tasks and then passed to Risk estimation.
- Documentation: Keep the results in a structured Hazard log. The documentation team should use it to check that every residual risk reaches the safety chapter, warnings and maintenance instructions, and that task names match the manual.
Hazard identification vs. risk assessment
Hazard identification only answers what can cause harm and when. Risk assessment also estimates and evaluates the risk and decides whether risk reduction is needed. Skipping or rushing identification is a common reason for incomplete risk assessments.