The quality of the output from any undertaking in controlling risk will only ever be as valuable as the information input to it. Simply identifying a risk, and introducing some suitable control measure, is seldom enough. All control measures will have, to a greater or lessor extent, some flaw or failing. These flaws will become apparent under various conditions of stress to those controls: we call these flaws the environs in which the controls exist. Understanding these environs allows an organization to develop better controls or, at the very least, be able to identify where potential failures in the controls might occur. The information we require for this endeavour is split into the following four sections:

Culture – Operations – Documentation – Administration

The considerations in CODA are not checked for their existence but for their suitability. That is to say, we should avoid the simplistic recognition that a policy has been created, or a study has been completed, or that any particular document is in place. To examine the environs of our control measures is to ensure that the policy actually represents what happens on the shopfloor; that the study’s conclusions were considered by the decision-makers and acted upon accordingly, and; that the document that is in place relays the right information to the right people.

We will be discussing the four parts of CODA in successive posts over the coming weeks.

To begin your journey ahead of that, Effectively Managing the Case for Safety is available to purchase now.

Available directly from Routledge Taylor & Francis Group and all good bookshops.

Our previous book, An Effective Strategy for Safe Design in Engineering and Construction, published by Wiley, is also available.