Explain how the Risk Assessment Methodology Calculator works?

A very good question and an important one too! So, no problems, let's get to it! The Risk Assessment Methodology Calculator (RAMC) is a tool used to objectively categorise the Severity (Consequence) and Probability (Frequency) of a hazard. The probability looks at the likelihood that an incident will be caused by the hazard, while the severity looks at the outcome the hazard causes if an incident occurs involving the hazard.

This tool is important because it tabulates and places the different severities and probabilities into levels, which allows different values and descriptions to be placed against each one. These can then be used to objectively calculate risks, which then allows risks to be quantified and prioritised. Let's look more closely at the severity and probability tables:

As you can see, both tables use weighting, impact and effect descriptions to categorise the different severity and probability levels. The weighting is used to quantify hazards, the impact classifies the severity or probability and the effect describes the possible outcome (for severity) and the likely occurrence (for probability). These descriptions make describing the hazard easy and then allow, based on the description, the hazard to be objectively quantified.