Risk assessment with a personal computer

Each year, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) reviews all facility and utility upgrade projects to determine their relative ranking in terms of safety benefit versus cost. The process begins when a team of health and safety professionals screens these proposed projects. Using a variation of William Fine's Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL) risk scoring system, a microcomputer is used to record, display, and print risk data about each competing project. This information, including a cost-benefit graph, assists line management to reach decisions concerning the relative merit of each project. The spread sheet formatting to perform the risk scoring and cost-benefit analysis is included with this paper.