How do you run a hazard identification walkthrough in 30 minutes?
Soter's hazard identification workflow turns a site walkthrough into a ranked, owner-assigned hazards-to-controls list. Broader scope than a JSA: not tied to one job, covers the whole route. The output is the live hazard register a plant safety team works from.
What a hazard identification walkthrough does
Hazard identification is the first step in any safety program. A trained walker covers a route (a line, a floor, a building, a yard), notes what could cause harm, and queues controls. It is broader than a JSA, which is tied to a single job, and it feeds the rest of the EHS stack: risk assessment, JSAs, audit prep, insurance underwriting.
Soter automates the capture and structuring step. The walker uses voice or photo on a phone; the workflow tags hazards by category, drafts controls from the customer's library by hierarchy, and produces a register the supervisor can assign and track.
Where hazard identification breaks at scale
Three bottlenecks consistently surface.
- Capture friction. Hazards spotted during a walkthrough get written down on a clipboard, or worse, remembered. Many never make it into a tracked register.
- Inconsistent categorization. Two walkers see the same hazard and tag it differently (slip vs. trip, mechanical vs. electrical). The corporate roll-up loses fidelity.
- Closure gap. Even when a hazard is logged, the controls are written informally, the owner is unclear, and the loop is open for weeks. Audit prep then becomes a backfill exercise.
How the Soter workflow runs in about 30 minutes
- Walk the route. Voice memo or photo on a phone as the walker moves through the area. No specialized equipment.
- Hazards captured and categorized. Each capture is tagged by hazard category (mechanical, electrical, slip and trip, ergonomic, chemical, fire, work-at-height, confined space) and tied to a location pin.
- Controls drafted per hazard. Engineering first, administrative next, then PPE. Controls are pulled from the customer's library so they match what the plant actually uses.
- Severity-likelihood scored (optional). Customers whose insurance carrier or audit framework requires it can apply a 5x5 risk matrix per hazard. Off by default.
- Assign, track, close. Each control gets an owner and a due date. The hazard register is the live document, not a one-off report. Audit-ready at any time.
Who uses this workflow
- Plant safety leads running monthly site walkthroughs and shift-start checks
- Construction site safety leads doing pre-shift area inspections
- Insurance loss-control consultants doing carrier-side site visits
- Corporate EHS auditors aggregating hazard registers across multiple sites
What you get when you sign up
- Voice-and-photo capture from a phone, no clipboard required
- Auto-categorized hazards with location pins on a site map
- Per-hazard controls grid, editable per-customer
- Optional 5x5 severity-likelihood scoring
- Live hazard register, audit-ready, exportable as PDF or CSV