Introduction

Risk ranking is a technique used to identify the most significant risks in any situation. The process requires the following steps:

1. Hazard identification
2. Risk evaluation
3. Development of a ranking list, comparing the risks, and placing them in order.

A Safety Management System (SMS) includes all those activities necessary to identify and manage risks. There are many references to the tools available for use in an SMS [Ref 1, 2, 3], but relatively little advice is available to help an organisation to decide which tools to include for a particular situation, nor how to adjust the activities to suit their needs. This paper sets out to redress the balance.