GBU rethought:
The basic idea
Risk assessments for a specific activity can often be used for another activity in a slightly modified form. This applies in particular to GBUs that can be regarded as a specialization of an existing GBU.
The scope of the modification is often only minor. A GBU for driving industrial trucks in general only differs in a few aspects from a GBU with special features for high-bay warehouses and/or narrow aisles.
Practical pitfalls in the care process
Now it would simply be possible to create a copy of the most suitable existing GBU and then make the necessary additions or deletions in this copy.
However, this creates a document that is largely identical to the original document. Changes in one of the two documents would then have to be made in the other document.
At the same time, a GBU usually contains numerous measures that – at least when the system is alive – have different fulfillment levels, etc.
Your roadmap to a specialized GBU
We would therefore only like to include or attach the changes (and any deletions) in the new GBU document. Incidentally, reference is made to the existing GBU, quasi as a “co-applicable risk assessment”. Further specializations of the same – then again applicable – risk assessments would be easily possible and very efficient in terms of creation and maintenance effort.
The advantage of this procedure is obvious: updates only have to be made in one place, both documents remain up-to-date with changes in only one place.
At the same time, handling would probably be somewhat laborious: it would be necessary to place both documents next to each other and compare them.
Using software such as GeSi³, which fully supports such a concept, this handling can be simplified: Similar to an overhead projector, where several slides are projected together on the wall, one on top of the other, the applicable and specialized GBU document can be merged into one document.
Added value at a glance
The specialization of a more general, then applicable, risk assessment can also be used to make adjustments for specific areas.
This is particularly useful if a GBU is carried out together with the manager responsible for the area. In this way, the individual requirements of the manager are directly reflected in the GBU without having to change the underlying GBU itself.
In practice, the risk assessment is usually first specialized and then individualized. All three documents are merged into one risk assessment so that the group of people to whom the GBU applies only has to observe one document.
