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Viet Nam
Industrial Park Situation
Text by Saito Hiroshi
The 17: Risk Engineering
Risk engineering refers to a service that aims to predict, prevent, and mitigate potential risks such as fire, occupational accidents, and crime. Especially when expanding into Vietnam, it is extremely difficult for a company to implement preventive measures against all risks on its own. Therefore, it is common to request specialized providers such as insurance companies to investigate and examine the risks.
1. Fire prevention measures:
For manufacturing companies, one of the most important things to be vigilant about is fire. While conducting regular fire inspections within the company is essential, utilizing risk engineering services can help implement even more effective measures. I would like to introduce some typical examples of such countermeasures.
1. Disaster prevention survey: Identify risks that can cause property damage within the premises. This mainly involves predicting risks in advance, such as improper management of fire protection equipment and production equipment, as well as issues with electrical equipment. It is also possible to investigate potential fire hazards, such as electrical leaks from low-voltage electrical rooms.
2. Infrared camera survey: This aims to check for abnormal heat generation in electrical wiring and reduce the risk of electrical fires. Thermography allows for the inspection of equipment defects, short circuits, and ground faults in electrical lines. In recent years, drone-based surveys have also become feasible, enabling efficient inspections of areas that were previously difficult to access.
3. Simple diagnosis of firefighting equipment: This service allows for self-checking of fire extinguishers, fire hydrants, and other firefighting equipment. It can be conducted online, with the survey results quantified as a maintenance management score, contributing to the improvement of disaster prevention levels.
As described above, it is now possible to inspect and check various factors that can pose fire risks. Some risk engineering services also conduct disaster risk surveys and provide response seminars in the event of a disaster.
2.Occupational accident prevention:
Industries that utilize a lot of machinery, such as manufacturing, inherently have a higher risk of occupational accidents. The following services represent basic examples of occupational accident prevention measures. Notably, many of these services focus on conducting risk surveys for forklifts, as they tend to be a major source of workplace accidents.
- Warehouse forklift survey: This service investigates the safety of warehouse operations and forklift operations from a third-party perspective. It identifies risks, inspects and maintains forklifts. This can help reduce the risk of occupational accidents involving employees and the risk of cargo damage caused by forklifts.
- Forklift driving recorder-based driving diagnosis: This service analyzes forklift driving through dashboard cameras (driving recorders) to identify and mitigate the risks of property damage accidents and personal injury accidents caused by human error.
- Occupational accident risk survey: The purpose is to prevent labor accidents and improve occupational safety and health levels. The survey investigates the factors behind occupational accidents from four perspectives: equipment, human, management, and environmental. It compiles the findings into a report on occupational safety and provides recommendations.
3. Crime prevention:
In recent years, the number of server attacks in Vietnam has been increasing. In addition to the usual crime risks, consideration of the risks from cyber attacks has also become necessary.
- Security survey: An investigation to reduce the risks of theft and loss. It mainly involves confirming the status of surveillance cameras, visitor logs, and security patrol systems.
- Cybersecurity survey: This investigates the IT system environment of each company, conducts a detailed diagnosis, and provides support for introducing various security solutions, operating and managing them after implementation, and initial incident response.
4. Comprehensive risk survey:
As mentioned above, it is common to have services that anticipate specific situations and proactively reduce risks. In addition to those, there are also services that anticipate comprehensive risks and provide countermeasures. Here are some examples of such comprehensive risk survey services.
- BCM Consulting: This service supports the development, review and implementation of business continuity plans (BCP) and business continuity management (BCM) initiatives. It analyzes the impact and risks of the company’s business operations, identifies necessary countermeasures in advance, and assists in executing the plan. It also promotes understanding of the plan through education and training, mainly through seminars, workshops, and role-playing exercises.
- Process Risk Assessment: For high-risk processes such as painting and die casting, this service identifies the hazards and current countermeasures, evaluates the risk level (frequency of occurrence and severity of damage), proposes improvement measures to reduce the risks, and prioritizes the improvement proposals.
- Simplified evaluation and appraisal: This compares the existing insured amount with the evaluation amount calculated through a simplified assessment, in order to review the insured amount. By comparing the current insured amount and the evaluated amount, it becomes possible to have specific discussions during contract renewal.
Of course, taking out insurance is important, but utilizing risk management services can also further enable the safe operation of a business. First, it is necessary to visualize the risks that could potentially arise within the company, and then consider countermeasures in advance.
(＊Information provided by: United Insurance Company of Vietnam)
齊藤公(Saito Hiroshi)
Business Advisor
G.A. Consultants Vietnam Co., Ltd
After graduating from university, he joined a PHP research institute and served as the head of the New York office. He then worked on the “Nagoya Port Redevelopment Project” at a subsidiary of the Chubu Nippon Broadcasting (CBC) company. He later shifted his base to Asia, where he was involved in the launch of “FM96.3” in Singapore, and the creation of “Hello Vietnam” and “Invest Asia” magazines in Vietnam. He then joined BW Industrial Development JSC, Vietnam’s largest rental factory development company, where he was responsible for attracting Japanese manufacturing companies. Currently, he is active as a consultant for the entry of Japanese companies at “G.A. Consultants”, one of the longest-standing Japanese HR consulting firms in Vietnam.
