Risk Source Definitions

A risk source is where the hazard comes from. Each risk names one or more of them, and that is what turns a register of assessments into an answer to "what in this workplace is generating our risk?"

A hazard class says what kind of harm is possible. A risk source says what is producing it. The first organizes the register; the second is what you act on.

Fields

• Code
  Unique identifier, issued from the list's number template when you leave the field empty.

• Name
  The source itself. Examples: Forklift traffic, Welding fume, Rotating machinery, Manual handling, Chemical storage, Lone working.

• Description
  Optional detail on what belongs under this source.

• Active
  Inactive sources are no longer offered when scoring a new risk. Existing risks keep the source they named.

Why a risk names several

A risk is one assessed scenario, and a scenario usually has more than one contributing source. A slip risk in a production hall may come from washdown water, from a leaking machine and from the floor surface at once — and the measures will address them separately.

Listing all of them is what makes the register searchable in the direction that matters: not "which risks are high" but "which risks does this piece of equipment appear in", which is the question asked when the equipment is being replaced.

A typical source list

Source	Typically appears in
Forklift and vehicle traffic	Impact, crushing, pedestrian separation
Rotating and moving machinery	Entanglement, cutting, guarding
Manual handling	Musculoskeletal injury
Chemical storage and handling	Exposure, spill, reaction
Hot work	Burns, fire, fume
Work at height	Falls, dropped objects
Electrical installations	Contact, arc flash
Noise sources	Hearing loss
Workload and shift patterns	Fatigue, psychosocial strain

Keeping the list usable

The picker on the risk form shows the list flat — nothing narrows it by hazard class. So the list's length is what decides whether people find the right row or invent a new one.

tip

Aim for sources at the level you could actually act on. Machinery is too broad to be worth filtering by; Press brake, line 3 is too narrow to survive a plant reorganization. Rotating machinery and Press equipment sit at the level where the answer to "which risks involve this" is a useful list.

Excel import and export

Like every definition screen in the module, the source list can be exported to Excel and re-loaded from a filled-in template, and rows can be deleted in bulk. Leaving the code column blank on an imported row has the system issue the next code from the list's own number template.

note

Bulk delete refuses the whole selection when any one row is in use by a risk. It does not delete what it can and skip the rest, because a partial delete leaves nobody able to say what actually happened.