Empowering Effective Teamwork for Machine Risk Reduction in the Workplace

The need for teamwork creates new requirements for engineers who use the new ANSI guidelines (B11 TR3-2000) for reducing risks associated with machines. Specifically, the guidelines state that “...a team of involved personnel (e.g., operators, maintenance, engineering) should participate in the risk assessment and reduction effort.” The goal of such teams is to achieve tolerable risk. If they are to be effective team members, engineers will need skills in team leadership; identifying tasks and their associated hazards; using risk assessment tools; developing consensus about degree of risk; and selling the team’s proposed risk reduction measures to management. This paper describes the stages of the TR3 process and focuses on engineering leadership skill development. Leadership must face the challenges of change and instill a sense of trust in the process so that a machine risk assessment team’s injury reduction work can be effective.