Risk assessment is the cornerstone of occupational health and safety, and Fine-Kinney is among the most widely used methods for doing it — particularly across Turkish industry. Its strength lies in grounding risk not in a single abstract judgment but in three separately measurable dimensions. This guide walks through the logic of Fine-Kinney and its field application step by step, in a way that an OHS professional new to the method can follow.
The logic: three multipliers
In Fine-Kinney, the risk score of each hazard is the product of three values:
- Probability (P): The likelihood of the hazard turning into harm, rated on a scale from "virtually unexpected" to "almost certain".
- Frequency (F): How often people are exposed to the hazard, graded from a few times a year up to continuous exposure.
- Severity (S): The weight of the consequence if harm occurs, assessed on a scale from a near miss to multiple fatalities.
The risk score is the product of the three, and the resulting value places the risk in a band: low scores fall in the acceptable zone, while high scores point to work that must be stopped immediately. The advantage of the multiplication logic is comparability — a rare hazard with grave consequences and a frequent hazard with mild consequences can be ranked on the same table.
Applying it in the field, step by step
The field workflow can be summarized in five steps. Step one is hazard identification: the site is walked section by section, activities are observed, and workers are interviewed to list hazards. Step two defines, for each hazard, who could be affected and how. Step three is scoring: probability, frequency and severity values are assigned as a team, with reasoning recorded — scoring based on one person's gut feeling weakens the method. In step four, scores are calculated and risks are ranked from highest to lowest; that ranking is your action plan's priority list. In broad terms, scores map to five behavior bands — from acceptable risk at the bottom, through planned measures in the middle, to immediate work stoppage at the top — and each band should have a predefined owner and response time. When prioritizing within a band, give severity the upper hand: probability can usually be reduced, but lowering severity demands structural change, and a rarely seen hazard with fatal consequences should comfort no one. Step five is planning and tracking controls: each high-risk item gets an owner, a deadline and an expected score improvement.
Common mistakes
The most frequent problem in Fine-Kinney practice is scoring by habit: last year's table is copied forward and the values survive unquestioned. Yet new equipment, new staff or a changed production tempo can shift every multiplier. The second common mistake is filing the analysis away as a finished document; a risk assessment is a living record, and scores must be recalculated as controls take effect. The third is lack of traceability: if there is no record of which risk was reduced by which measure, when and by whom, the analysis becomes indefensible the moment an audit begins.
Why digital tracking makes the difference
A Fine-Kinney process run on spreadsheets stops scaling as the facility grows — version confusion, lost files and untracked actions become inevitable. ISG Pusula lets you run Fine-Kinney risk analysis digitally, and combines it with incident management, board meetings and a digital archive for complete OHS management. The assessment stops being a document buried in the archive on the day it is written and becomes a traceable process, complete with its controls, updates and history.
If you would like to move your risk assessments into a living system, explore ISG Pusula or contact us with your questions.