Safety App Of The Week

January 5, 2015 No Comments

Below is this week’s “Safety App of the Week“.  Every Monday we publish an article that reviews and rates a new workplace safety app.  Our testing is done on Apple iPads and Samsung Galaxy Tab 3s.  We rate each app from ♥ to ♥♥♥♥♥ (♥♥♥♥♥ is the best).  Prior app of the week articles are archived here.   

JBS Risk Register & Treatment Plan Lite

Official Description  

“A safe and healthy workplace is an environment we all want to know we will be coming to when we arrive at the office, in the factory, at the construction site or wherever it may be that you work. As such, everyone has a responsibility to ensure that Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) laws, regulations and codes of practices are implemented in their workplace. Some hazards in the workplace can cause significant injury that the very livelihood of the organisation can be affected if the right risk management and treatment plans aren’t implemented. JBS’ WHS Risk Register & Treatment Plan app allows anyone in an organisation, not just WHS practitioners, to assess the likelihood and consequences of risks within a workplace by reviewing the environment, existing controls and treatment plans. The JBS app allows the user to develop new treatment plans, and distribute them as required.

Using this App

The App is designed to be used for WHS practitioners, but can be also be used by others in the workplace to assess and treat risks and hazards in the workplace. The App is available in two versions, a Lite and a Pro version. Both versions have the same functionality, although the Pro version allows the user to email the .csv file of the treatment plan spreadsheet.

Instructions

You can conduct an almost unlimited number of assessment on your or others workplaces using the JBS WHS Risk Register and Treatment Plan App. The App is designed to be user-friendly and flows freely through the assessment process.

The ‘WHS Assessment’ button takes the user to the ‘projects’ page where they can add organisations, new assessments or edit existing assessments. On this page the user can select an existing organisation (this could also be a business unit within your organisation) which will then highlight the assessments conducted for that organisations listed by month. When creating a new assessment a blank form will appear. Fields on the form allow the user to enter the following:

•Date of assessment
•Name of assessor
•Location
•The Risks associated with an activity or location
•Impact, including consequence and likelihood, of a risk happening
•Existing controls
•New treatments required
•Revised impact based on new controls and treatments.

The user is then able to save the assessment and in the Pro version email the .csv file to the relevant managers or users.

The ‘Result’ page is available to the users as a reference to previous assessments, as stated above in the Pro version, allows the user to email the .csv spreadsheets. The information contained on the ‘Projects’ page is also included on the ‘Results’ page and allows the user to see the date, author, location and number of assessments for each organisation by month. The user is able to open each assessment to review existing treatment plans and controls.

Reporting

Each assessment is depicted in a spread sheet that allows the user to gain a quick understanding of the current status of each assessment. This spread sheet can be emailed to other users or management should this be required.“¹

Thumbs Up

• cost of  this “lite” version is free (but the “pro” version costs $17.99)
• time-saving drop-down menus
• automatically calculates both the initial and the final risk ratings
• archives completed risk assessments
• can sort risk assessments by: date, assessor, and location
• useful appendices on “Six Steps To Risk Management” & “WHS Risk Matrix“
• works off-line

 

Thumbs Down

• no instructions provided
• the lite version can not email the completed assessments
• the risk assessment form is extremely “general” and is a “one-size-fits-all” approach to hazard evaluation and risk assessment

 

Overall Rating

• iPad  – ♥♥♥♥
• iPhone – not available
• Android – not available
• Overall – this app is too general to take into the work place and assess risks; however, it’s a great resource for training supervisors (and safety students) on the fundamental principles of hazard evaluation and risk assessment.  Also, we’d use it to quantify the risks associated with new equipment or processes.

 

¹ Description courtesy of  iTunes

 

 

Safety Articles