DCHAS-L Archives, Nov 10 2021 - Re: [DCHAS-L] RAMP and Risk Assessment in the Laboratory

Hello All,

Harry's comment is accurate. RAMP is an organizing principle that can be applied to almost every facility and every activity. This is precisely what I was saying in my comment at

at https://cen.acs.org/acs-news/comment/Collaborations-advance-ACS-chemical-safety/99/i40 - RAMP is deceptively simple, but the devil is in the details.

The RAMP risk management system is consistent with and complementary to other safety programs. As far as the business side, questions might be related to a cost-benefit analysis.or other effective lower cost options that do not increase the risk.

The RAMP concept leads to critical thinking at every step of a process, regardless whether it is used in academia or industry. And, the applications of RAMP extend beyond the academic laboratories and industrial laboratories.

For example, the groundskeeper/landscaper can apply the RAMP concept. And construction workers. And drivers. And.... In fact, the RAMP concept can be applied to EVERY occupation and to EVERY task and nearly every activity. Take football (or any sport) - what are the hazards? What are the risks from those hazards? How do you minimize those risks to an acceptable level? (What is an acceptable level of risk?) What actions need to be taken if someone gets hurt or something unexpected happens?

And, yes, the ACS has included the RAMP concept in their "Safety in the Chemistry Enterprise" Position Statement.

https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/policy/publicpolicies/science-policy/safety-in-the-chemistry-enterprise.html

Finally, to help educators with integrating risk management into their chemistry curricula, ACS uses RAMP to organize information in its chemical safety resources.

Hope this helps.

Please feel free to contact me or Marta Gmuczyk at the ACS Office of Chemical Safety at safety**At_Symbol_Here**acs.org

Regards,

Kirk Hunter

Chair, CCS 2021

On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 9:43 AM Mary Beth Koza <mbkoza2**At_Symbol_Here**gmail.com> wrote:

Group,

Risk Assessment is a major component of business continuity. I believe the accreditation groups are incorporating business continuity into the accreditation process.

Mary Beth Koza
Treasurer - Division of Chemical Health & Safety of the ACS

On Wed, Nov 10, 2021 at 9:55 AM CHAS membership <membership**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org> wrote:
> >Our environmental analytical laboratory has recently undergone several audits during which the topic of Risk Assessment has been discussed.

I'm not clear if the risk assessment was the subject of the audit, or just a discussion item during the course of the visit. I've been involved in similar accreditation visits where the concept of risk assessment was brought up, but not in the way that we think about it operationally in the lab setting. A fair amount of confusion arose until a common understanding of the scope of the risk assessment was clarified.

> >How does ACS policy on RAMP used outside the academia?
>
As Harry said, RAMP is guideline rather than a policy, but various CHAS members have been exploring using it as operational tool to discuss risks with a variety of stakeholders and it has proven to be helpful for that purpose. However, there is no detailed description of how to do this similar to the standards you cited.

Thanks for asking an interesting question.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
Membership Chair
American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Health and Safety
membership**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org

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