The Gap Between Plan and Place

Every planned risk assessment is written some distance from the work in time and space. By the time the crew arrives, some of its assumptions have expired.

What commonly differs

• Weather, light, temperature, ground conditions.
• Other crews working above, below or alongside.
• Equipment that is unavailable, substituted or damaged.
• Access routes blocked, scaffolding incomplete, isolation points different from the drawing.
• Crew composition — someone new, someone absent, someone doing a task for the first time.
• Plant condition — a leak, a hot surface, a live line thought to be dead.

What dynamic assessment adds

The planned assessment covers the foreseeable; the dynamic assessment covers today. It does not replace the plan, has no authority to reduce controls, and cannot authorise work the permit does not cover. Its only outputs are: proceed as planned, adjust within the plan, or stop and escalate.