# Rapid Risk Assessment in Industry: Increasing Awareness of Worker Safety in Industrial Activities
## 2 Methods
### EL-PRAI Method: Applying Experiential Learning Theory in Engineering Education  
Being a concept that expresses the probability of the occurrence of events with negative connotations and their impact, risk is defined in the specialized literature in various ways [28; 29], presenting itself in a diversity of forms, taking into account the objectives of risk assessment [30]. Risks can occur globally, in everyday life, in various forms: natural disasters [31], pandemics, natural hazards, complex emergencies [32], floods [33], or in various fields of activity, such as transportation [34], industry [35], etc. The EL-PRAI methodology presented in this article helps engineers and team leaders understand how hazards or dangerous phenomena can cause accidents, even catastrophes, how important prevention and control measures are, and above all, how effective they are. For this reason, a detailed presentation of the EL-PRAI methodology is necessary. Professional risk management in a company starts with diagnosing the safety status at the company level. To establish this diagnosis accurately, various techniques and risk assessment methodologies can be employed. Most of these risk assessment methods begin with hazard identification within the analyzed activities, associated risk identification, severity, and probability estimation, and then, using a risk matrix, the risk level is estimated and assessed. During this process of estimating risk parameters, engineers and team leaders can observe that determining the maximum foreseeable severity is relatively simple. This determination is based on the potential effects the hazard may have on workers and/or the potential property damage it may cause. However, through this observation, the engineers realize the necessity of understanding the nature of the danger in depth. On the other hand, engineers can observe that the probability of the risk manifesting and producing those effects is sometimes challenging to establish with satisfactory precision. As seen in Figure 1, the EL-PRAI methodology presents a series of learning-experimentation stages aimed at acquiring skills. An important contribution to this process is also made by the testing conducted at certain key stages, which ensure both the engineer and the instructor that the acquired skills are adequate both quantitatively and qualitatively. The first step involves engaging the engineers in this process, with the instructor playing a particularly important role in this stage. After involvement, the engineers must understand and become aware of the importance of safety aspects in carrying out activities; thus, the engineer will be able to develop critical thinking skills. This is the first important skill that we aim for the engineer or team leader to acquire. In this stage, the engineers will be able to explain and argue hypotheses of possible risk scenarios, and this stage requires an initial verification of the skill acquired up to this point. The next stage involves the engineers assessing risks and forming the most objective attitude possible towards the analyzed risks. This process requires a high level of involvement from both the engineer and the instructor, who, through the practice-based learning process, stimulate the engineer's creativity and innovative possibilities that should lead to the development of decision-making skills, possibly involving complex decisions. The engineers should be able to propose remedial solutions and control measures for hazards, taking into account other external factors in the analyzed process, such as available resources, and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solutions. In this way, the process of developing the engineer's skills in diagnosing concrete situations in production, even from the design phase, and addressing them from a security perspective can be considered complete. Figure 1: Diagram outlining the main stages of learning, experimentation, and acquisition of effective skills in the EL-PRAI methodology.