If your workplace stores compressed gases in cylinders you’ll need to follow the guidelines of AS4332-2004 – The Storage and Handling of Gases in Cylinders to control all the hazards associated with the cylinders.
To do this effectively your organisation should use a risk management methodology to ensure that you understand each of the hazards and the risks they present to your operations. This blog introduces the STOREMASTA risk management methodology Identify – Assess – Control – Sustain, showing how each of the steps work to ensure your workplace is always compliant with Australian WHS safety legislation.
Keeping your workplace compliant
To keep your workplace compliant with WHS safety legislation in Australia, you need to do more than just work through each of the steps in the methodology – once. Worksites are dynamic places and both operating methods and staff change regularly, so Step 4: SUSTAIN is critical for identifying those changes and maintaining compliance.
It’s essential to conduct a follow-up risk assessment to review the control measures you have implemented and make sure they are working. Your follow up risk assessment for the cylinder hazards at your worksite should consider:
- Any new cylinder hazards introduced by the control measures
- Any gas cylinders and hazards that were overlooked during your first risk assessment
- If there has been a change in the number of safety incidents involving compressed gases
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Whether staff are correctly handling the gas cylinders and using appropriate PPE
Additional risk assessments should also be conducted as changes are introduced to the workplace: things like a change in management, staff turnover, introducing new gases to the workplace, or using a new gas cylinder supplier.
Walter Ingles, Dangerous Goods Advisor and Consultant, STOREMASTA
He loves helping organisations reduce risk and improve efficiencies in the storage and management of dangerous goods.
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