You have recently been employed by a transport company in a middle management role. This company, which has 50 trucks, operates from a depot on the outskirts of a major regional city. Included in the depot are the company head office and a mechanical workshop for maintaining the fleet. The depot yard is bitumen sealed except near the boundaries. The entire site is fenced by a 1.2-metre-high chain wire fence. Some of the goods are offloaded from incoming semi-trailer trucks and transferred to smaller truck for local delivery, often times on the next day. This necessitates the use of a forklift and small mobile crane.
There are residential properties within 30 metres of the depot. Some complaints have been made to the local council about late night operations and security lighting. This has placed limitations on the operating hours and how lighting can be used.
Recently, there has been a spate of robberies from the site after hours. All the robberies are of goods from trucks that are parked overnight. No equipment (trucks, forklift or crane) have been stolen. It has been established that the thieves are simply climbing the existing fence and passing goods over the fence where they are loaded into light utility vehicles. This has become particularly concerning following the theft of some dangerous chemicals.
To reduce the incidence of theft, the owner has decided to improve the site security. This will require the company’s own staff to construct a 2.4 metre chain wire fence topped with barbed wire. This will require boring holes into the ground to take steel posts.
Before starting the construction of the fence, the owner has asked you to develop a risk mitigation system as he is concerned about a few potential problems. He has mentioned overhead power lines and underground pipes, but you know there are many other hazards.
Tasks are:
- Present a list of readily identified hazards.
- Choose five (5) of the above hazards in the context of the scenario and provide a brief description (approximately 80-100 words) for each. When describing these hazards, pre-existing controls that are already in place can be included. It is likely that you will need to make various assumptions at this point.
- Design a risk management system which could be used to manage one (1) of the hazards described above. In practical terms this means you must relate all five of the steps or elements of the risk management process to this issue (approx. 1,500 words).
