Risks In The World

For a Quality Engineer, Risk-Management / Risk-Mitigation & Prevention of Recurrence are always underlying what we do. There are plenty of different types of risks in our world, and certainly not all of them are on my mind, but this past week when at my son's school, this one popped into my head:

There's an open stairway adjacent to the reception desk in the front office!

How is this a risk, and maybe even what type of risk, you ask?

The risk I'm thinking about here is the transmission of germs...

Consider that when we discuss washing our hands as a means to prevent the spread of germs, it is both that we may know we have been sick, and that we have been in contact with unknown conditions --touching door-knobs, & handrails, etc.

In the case of our feet, many people remove their shoes when at home. They have been out in the world, and aside from the visible dirt on their shoes, they recognize there are other unseen & unknowns that may be tracked into their home.

So let's get back to these open stairs in the school's front office...

The stairs are built in the usual 'indoor public staircase' manner --that is they're steel, with vinyl/rubber treads, and all the appropriate handrail/fall-protection that these type of stairs should have. But again they're open on the side --no wall or barrier between the stairs and the reception desk.

The reception desk is exactly adjacent to the base of these stairs, and the person at the desk sits/faces parallel to them --perhaps 4 feet away at most.

Most certainly we all understand stairs as a method of stretching the floor from one level of a building to another --but as a risk of germ propagation, let's consider how differently we might walk on stairs than on a flat floor?

I know that for myself, on many occasions, my footfalls on stairs are much heavier than on a flat floor --it's all about how fast I want to get up or down which dictates this. (I know this is true for many people.)

So for this stairway in the school's front office: If people are stepping with more force, and there is no barrier between the stairs and the reception-person, how much splatter of dirt and other whatnot is heading in their direction?!?!

This was the first time I'd been in this office, and realized these stairs existed. I was there as the school-day began, and by my first-hand count of the kids (and adults) running these stairs --most certainly many were running, there was somewhere easily more than 100!

About an hour later, at the next school-period interchange, I didn't see as many people on the stairs, but I didn't stick around for the whole interchange-time either.

Now, if this inter-office stairway was traveled by just a few people --mostly at normal walking pace, and not stepping hard, there really might be minimal issue, but as I see it, currently the germ-risk to the reception-person is just crazy!

To quantify this risk in real terms, we'd have to put time to observation on multiple different days, with different weather types, and interview the reception and cleaning staff about how-much/how-often/what has to be cleaned, etc.

However, for myself, in this instant point-in-time view, if I were to use a standard 1-10 rated S.O.D. sheet, I'd offer the following:

Severity deserves at least a 5 of 10 -- though for certain, I believe this is where we need further data the most.

Occurrence certainly gets a 9 or 10, because people coming in from outside and using these stairs happens 100% of the time,

Then maybe a 5 of 10 on the Detection scale, because on some days --say when it is really wet outside, you might actually see it happening, but on other's not so much. Again, more study would be needed.

Anyways, I am not trying here to be alarmist, but these are the things I see given the world I am in.

Eric Jennings

ASQ-CQE; ASQ-CSSGB