Identification, analysis and dissemination of information on near misses: A case study in the construction industry

Near misses are well-known for providing a major source of useful information for safety management. They are more frequent events than accidents and their causes may potentially result in an accident under slightly different circumstances. Despite the importance of this type of feedback, there is little knowledge on the characteristics of near misses, and on the use of this information in safety management. This article proposes guidelines for identifying, analyzing and disseminating information on near misses in construction sites. In particular, it is proposed that near misses be analyzed based on four categories: (a) whether or not it was possible to track down the event; (b) the nature of each event, in terms of its physical features (e.g. falling objects); (c) whether they provided positive or negative feedback for the safety management system; and (d) risk, based on the probability and severity associated with each event. The guidelines were devised and tested while a safety management system was being developed in a healthcare building project. The monitoring of near misses was part of a safety performance measurement system. Among the main results, a dramatic increase in both the number and quality of reports stands out after the workforce was systematically encouraged to report. While in the first 4 months of the study – when the workforce was not encouraged to report – there were just 12 reports, during the subsequent 4 months – when the workforce was so encouraged – there were 110 reports, all of them being analyzed based on the four analytical categories proposed.     

Development of a database for accidents and incidents in the Greek petrochemical industry

The present paper describes the development of a database that comprises all incidents from the Greek petrochemical industry for the period 1997–2003. This database includes industrial incidents, accidents, operational accidents and near misses from all petrochemical sites in Greece and Cyprus. The design of the database has been conceived in a user-friendly way with additional possibilities for its further use, such as: statistical analysis of the data, calculation of safety indicators, accident reports and human factors analysis. The database allows the various participating industries to compare the analysis of indicators in their own installations with the national average, as the database comprises data from the entire Greek petrochemical industry. Special care has been given to include data from near misses too.     

Dynamic risk assessment using failure assessment and Bayesian theory

To ensure the safety of a process system, engineers use different methods to identify the potential hazards that may cause severe consequences. One of the most popular methods used is quantitative risk assessment (QRA) which quantifies the risk associated with a particular process activity. One of QRA's major disadvantages is its inability to update risk during the life of a process. As the process operates, abnormal events will result in incidents and near misses. These events are often called accident precursors. A conventional QRA process is unable to use the accident precursor information to revise the risk profile. To overcome this, a methodology has been proposed based on the work of Meel and Seider (2006). Similar to Meel and Seider (2006) work, this methodology uses Bayesian theory to update the likelihood of the event occurrence and also failure probability of the safety system. In this paper the proposed methodology is outlined and its application is demonstrated using a simple case study. First, potential accident scenarios are identified and represented in terms of an event tree, next, using the event tree and available failure data end-state probabilities are estimated. Subsequently, using the available accident precursor data, safety system failure likelihood and event tree end-state probabilities are revised. The methodology has been simulated using deterministic (point value) as well as probabilistic approach. This Methodology is applied to a case study demonstrating a storage tank containing highly hazardous chemicals. The comparison between conventional QRA and the results from dynamic failure assessment approach shows the significant deviation in system failure frequency throughout the life time of the process unit.     

Accident precursors and near misses on construction sites: An investigative tool to derive information from accident databases

Safety problems on construction sites seem to be largely unresolved as the fatality and injury records in construction continue to plague the industry across the world. The lack of an effective system to interrupt and prevent the precursors and contributory factors on construction sites is argued to be the critical deficiency of extant research and practice. This paper covers research to develop a systematic mechanism to interrupt and prevent precursors and immediate factors (PaIFs) on construction sites. First, the importance of precursors and near misses to further improve safety margins are emphasized. Furthermore, a systematic model of improving safety on construction sites is presented to consummate and perfect extant safety-improving systems on construction sites by reinforcing and accentuating the real-time tracking of precursors and immediate factors. The real-time tracking sub-system is argued to be an effective measure to interrupt and prevent PaIFs. Eventually, an investigative model of PaIFs on construction sites is proposed, indicating how to seek PaIFs from historical accident records and how to obtain near misses and mitigating measures from reported events. Results indicate that model of PaIFs is effective and able to acquire as much information as possible about precursors and near misses and thus, in part, overcome the deficiency of lacking sufficient and adequate historical accident records. This study proposes a feasible approach to facilitate acquiring more useful information from historical records of accidents in order to improve safety on construction sites and serve as a foundation for further study by drawing researchers’ attention to precursors and near misses.     

Risk assessment in the offshore industry

This paper describes the implementation and use of risk assessment in the offshore industry in relation to safety aspects — safety to people's life and health, as well as environment and property. Although risk assessments may be based on both qualitative and quantitative methods, the main focus here will be on quantitative risk assessments (QRA). The development of offshore QRA has been lead by a mutual influence and interaction between the regulatory authorities for the UK and Norwegian sectors of the North Sea as well as the oil companies operating here. The experience from this area has been the main basis during the writing of this paper.     

城市天然气管网预警系统的研究与实现

随着城市天然气管网密度加大,由于天然气管理手段滞后导致的天然气泄漏事故急剧增加。基于GIS技术并结合燃气管网定量风险分析(QRA)模型,提出利用定量风险分析模型实现管网风险预警的方法。结合C#+ArcEngine编程技术,开发城市天然气管网预警系统,实现管网失效率分析、燃气事故扩散模拟、火灾及爆炸模拟、个人风险等值线绘制、社会风险分析等功能,能够进行区域性事故后果预测、个人风险和社会风险计算、安全性评价及应急预案编制等项工作。     

The role of risk avoidance and locus of control in workers’ near miss experiences: Implications for improving safety management systems

The process industry has made major advancements and is a leader in near-miss safety management, with several validated models and databases to track close call reports. However, organizational efforts to develop safe work procedures and rules do not guarantee that employees will behaviorally comply with them. Assuming that at some point, every safety management system will need to be examined and realigned to help prevent incidents on the job, it is important to understand how personality traits can impact workers' risk-based decisions. Such work has been done in the mining industry due to its characteristically high risks and the results can be gleaned to help the process industry realign goals and values with their workforce. In the current study, researchers cross-sectionally surveyed 1,334 miners from 20 mine sites across the United States, varying in size and commodity. The survey sought to understand how mineworkers' risk avoidance could impact their near miss incidents on the job – a common precursor to lost-time incidents. Multiple regressions showed that as a miner's level of risk avoidance increased by 1 unit in the 6-point response scale, the probability of experiencing a near miss significantly decreased by 30% when adjusting for relevant control variables. Additionally, a significant interaction between risk avoidance and locus of control suggested that the effect of risk avoidance on near misses is enhanced as a miner's locus of control increases. A one-unit increase in locus of control appends the base effect of risk avoidance on near misses with an additional 8% decrease in the probability. Findings are discussed from a near-miss safety management system perspective in terms of methods to foster both risk avoidance and locus of control in an effort to reduce the probability of near misses and lost time at the organizational level within the process industry and other high-hazard industries.     

Research on three-dimensional visualization system of Natech events triggered domino accidents in oil-gas depots

Natech events and domino accidents happen worldwide and usually lead to severe consequences, especially in hazardous areas such as Oil-Gas depots. With the continuous development of the Oil-Gas industry and information technology, it is essential to realize the three-dimensional management and monitoring of hazardous substances. To evaluate the consequences caused by Natech events triggered domino accidents (accident chain), a matrix loop method was proposed to calculate the probability and evolution path of the accident chain. The actual layout and the real-time data of the Oil-Gas depot are input into the evaluation method in matrices, thus making the results reliable and updated. Besides, a B/S architecture system is developed to present the evaluation consequences of the proposed method. The three-dimensional visualization effects of natural disasters, technological accidents and the dynamic propagation process of the accident chain are also realized in the system to enhance the user's experience. A system application regarding lightning-triggered domino accidents was carried out to demonstrate the feasibility and rapidity of the proposed evaluation method and perform the system's operation process and visualization effects. The application results show that the system can provide effective decision-making assistance to safety management workers before the accident and guidance for emergency rescue operations during the accident.     

Dynamic accident modeling for high-sulfur natural gas gathering station

Dynamic accident modeling for a gas gathering station is implemented to prevent high-sulfur natural gas leakage and develop equipment inspection strategy. The progress of abnormal event occurring in the gas gathering station is modeled by the combination of fault tree and event sequence diagram, based on accident causal chain theory, i.e. the progress is depicted as sequential failure of safety barriers, then, the occurrence probability of the consequence of abnormal event is predicted. Consequences of abnormal events are divided into accidents and accident precursors which include incidents, near misses and so on. The Bayesian theory updates failure probability of safety barrier when a new observation (i.e. accident precursors or accidents data) arrives. Bayesian network then correspondingly updates failure probabilities of basic events of the safety barriers with the ability of abductive reasoning. Consequence occurrence probability is also updated. The results show that occurrence probability trend of different consequences and failure probability trend of safety barriers and basic events of the safety barriers can be obtained using this method. In addition, the critical basic events which play an important role in accidents occurrence are also identified. All of these provide useful information for the maintenance and inspection of the gas gathering station.     

Modelling of BP Texas City refinery accident using dynamic risk assessment approach

Process industries involve handling of hazardous substances which on release may potentially cause catastrophic consequences in terms of assets lost, human fatalities or injuries and loss of public confidence of the company. In spite of using endless end-of-the-pipe safety systems, tragic accidents such as BP Texas City refinery still occur. One of the main reasons of such rare but catastrophic events is lack of effective monitoring and modelling approaches that provide early warnings and help to prevent such event. To develop a predictive model one has to rely on past occurrence data, as such events are rare, enough data are usually not available to better understand and model such behavior. In such situations, it is advisable to use near misses and incident data to predict system performance and estimate accident likelihood. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate testing and validation of one such approach, dynamic risk assessment, using data from the BP Texas City refinery incident.Dynamic risk assessment is a novel approach which integrates Bayesian failure updating mechanism with the consequence assessment. The implementation of this methodology to the BP Texas City incident proves that the approach has the ability to learn from near misses, incident, past accidents and predict event occurrence likelihood in the next time interval.     

基于案例比较的我国生产安全事故系统性风险实证研究*

为开展生产安全事故系统性风险实证研究,从风险治理角度提出单位国内生产总值生产安全事故死亡率、工矿商贸就业人员10万人生产安全事故死亡率、生产安全事故致死率和重特大事故死亡人数占比4项指标,采用秩和比法构造相对安全风险指数(SRI),并以江苏和宁夏为例开展实证研究。研究结果表明:SRI可更好地量化和反映我国生产安全事故系统性风险水平;近年我国系统性风险非持续下降,呈波动变化;事故少发地区的系统性风险不一定小于事故多发地区。研究结果可为我国安全生产战略谋划和顶层设计提供新思路。     

基于双重预防机制优化企业安全管理研究

为优化企业安全管理,提高安全管理效率,减少事故的发生和降低事故造成后果的严重程度,本文根据双重预防机制的要求和对企业安全管理的研究,采用危险源辨识、事故因果连锁论、安全风险分级和层次分析等方法,通过对可能导致事故发生的各阶段子事件进行分析,研究系统性的危险源辨识、辨析临界事故发生的紧急情况事件、各事件安全风险分级标准和安全管理资源分配等问题。结果表明:企业安全管理体系的优化理论可结合企业实际情况,形成企业自查自改自治的闭环安全管理体系,提高企业对风险管控的效果;并且优化后的安全管理方法对管理资源的利用更为科学,可提高企业安全管理工作的效率。     

风电行业安全生产风险特征与对策

系统检索了2000至2012年年底风电行业事故情况,从事故总数、死亡人数及事故类型展开分析。结果表明,风电行业风险具有自身特征,事故一直呈现上升趋势,其中叶片损坏、火灾、结构毁损、抛冰、交通运输、环境破坏等事故比较突出,对从业人员和公众构成威胁。我国风电行业正处于快速扩张期,内在风险较高,需引起行业主管部门和企业的高度重视,开展全产业链系统安全研究和管理手段创建,开发本质安全型工艺和设备,强化施工及运营安全管理。分析结果对指导风电行业安全管理决策和提升企业安全管理水平具有现实意义。     

Risk assessment of chemical process considering dynamic probability of near misses based on Bayesian theory and event tree analysis

With the development of modern automatic control systems, chemical accidents are of low frequency in most chemical plants, but once an accident happens, it often causes serious consequences. Near-misses are the precursor of accidents. As the process progresses, near misses caused by abnormal fluctuation of process variables may eventually lead to accidents. However, variables that may lead to serious consequences in the production process cannot update the risk in the life cycle of the process by traditional risk assessment methods, which do not pay enough attention to the near misses. Therefore, this paper proposed a new method based on Bayesian theory to dynamically update the probability of key variables associated with process failure risk and obtain the risk change of the near-misses. This article outlines the proposed approach and uses a chemical process of styrene production to demonstrate the application. In this chemical process, the key variables include flow rate, liquid level, pressure and temperature. In order to study the dynamic risk of the chemical process with consideration of near misses, according to the accumulated data of process variables, firstly the abnormal probability of the variables and the failure rate of safety systems associated with the variables were updated with time based on Bayesian theory. On the basis of the dynamic probability of key process variables, an event tree of possible consequences caused by variable anomalies was established. From the logical relationship of the event tree, the probability of different consequences can be obtained. The results show that the proposed risk assessment method based on Bayesian theory can overcome the shortcomings of traditional analysis methods. It shows the dynamic characteristics of the probability of different near misses, and achieves the dynamic risk analysis of chemical process accidents.     

Between a rock and a hard place: Accident and near-miss reporting on offshore service vessels

Reporting accidents and near misses is an important aspect of safety management. This study explores reporting in contract work, exemplified by offshore service vessels, and the associations with external and internal organisational factors. The empirical foundation for the study is a questionnaire survey (N = 1108). Reporting was negatively related to high efficiency demands from external actors and low quality of feedback to the reporting community. These factors were more strongly related to reporting than internal factors within the safety climate construct. Short-term contract engagement was also negatively associated with reporting. The results could reflect the organisational complexity that characterises much contract work. The study implies that attempts to increase the level of reporting in contract work should not be limited to focusing on internal organisational factors. Framework conditions and signals from external actors regarding the actual priority accorded to safety should also be considered.     

A quantitative risk management framework for dust and hybrid mixture explosions

Dust and hybrid-mixture explosions continue to occur in industrial processes that handle fine powders and flammable gases. Considerable research is therefore conducted throughout the world with the objective of both preventing the occurrence and mitigating the consequences of such events. In the current work, research has been undertaken to help move the field of dust explosion prevention and mitigation from its current emphasis on hazards (with an accompanying reliance on primarily engineered safety features) to a focus on risk (with an accompanying reliance on hierarchical, risk-based, decision-making tools). Employing the principles of quantitative risk assessment (QRA) of dust and hybrid-mixture explosions, a methodological framework for the management of these risks has been developed.The QRA framework is based on hazard identification via credible accident scenarios for dust explosions, followed by probabilistic fault-tree analysis (using Relex – Reliability Excellence – software) and consequence severity analysis (using DESC – Dust Explosion Simulation Code – software). Identification of risk reduction measures in the framework is accomplished in a hierarchical manner by considering inherent safety measures, passive and active engineered devices, and procedural measures (in that order). An industrial case study is presented to show how inherent safety measures such as dust minimization and dust/process moderation can be helpful in reducing dust and hybrid-mixture explosion consequences in a 400-m³ polyethylene storage silo.     

Assessment of risks posed by chemical industries—application of a new computer automated tool maxcred-III

The paper describes the application of a new computer automated tool, developed by us, in the risk analysis of a typical chemical industry engaged in the manufacture of linear alkyl benzene. Using the tool—a comprehensive software package maxcred-III (MAXimum CREDible accident analysis)—nine different scenarios, one for each storage unit, have been studied. It is observed that the accident scenario for chlorine (instantaneous release followed by dispersion) leads to the largest area-under-lethal-impact, while the accident scenario for propylene (CVCE followed by fireball) forecasts the most intense damage per unit area. The accidents involving propylene, benzene, and fuel oil have a high possibility of causing domino/secondary accidents as their destructive impacts (shock waves, heat load) would envelope other storage and process units.Besides demonstrating the utilizability of maxcred-III, this study also focuses attention on the need to bestow greater effort towards risk assessment/crisis management. The authors hope that the study will highlight the severity of the risk posed by the industry and thus generate safety consciousness among plant managers. The study may also help in developing accident-prevention strategies and the installation of damage control devices.     

Stock market responses to chemical accidents in Japan: An event study

Despite recent major chemical process accidents in Japan, the top management teams of firms still avoid taking costly risk reduction measures because of their low perceived impact on firm performance. The disclosure of information on accident risks might motivate managers to enhance workplace safety because of the subsequent evaluation of firms by investors in stock markets. If the disclosed risk information is newly available for investors, firms with a high risk of accidents would receive a poor evaluation by stock markets and thus managers would take risk reduction measures to prevent stock prices from declining. In this study, we conduct an event study analysis to examine whether accident risk information is already reflected in stock prices, using data on the Japanese chemical industry. The results of our event study show that the estimated cumulative average abnormal returns of firms' stocks are significantly negative after severe accidents actually occurred. This finding implies that risk information is not already reflected in the stock prices of Japanese chemical firms and that the disclosure of accident risk information has the potential to motivate the top management teams of firms to reduce their firms’ accident risk.     

事故树-风险矩阵评估高校实验室火灾风险

为了使高校实验室安全管理科学化、精准化,应用事故树-风险矩阵法进行风险评估。首先采用事故树法对实验室火灾事故进行分析,得出导致事故发生的基本事件,然后依照事故致因理论,得出事故隐患三级原因,采用层次分析法对事故发生的频率和后果严重度及安全措施补偿系数的等级赋值,得到四级风险矩阵模型,对基本事件调查并由专家评估得出其风险值。评估结果表明导致实验室火灾事故的主要原因为:燃烧反应失控、加热、人员消防素质、操作不当、实验室管理水平、火灾报警系统缺陷、电气火花、灭火材料不足、消防系统缺陷、木制品、反应放热、存放不当。根据基本事件风险值高低针对性采取相应预防措施可以一定程度上提升实验室安全管理水平。     

Lagging or leading? Exploring the temporal relationship among lagging indicators in mining establishments 2006–2017

Problem: Safety management literature generally categorizes key performance indicators (KPIs) as either leading or lagging. Traditional lagging indicators are measures related to negative safety incidents, such as injuries, while leading indicators are used to predict (and therefore can be used to prevent) the likelihood of future negative safety incidents. Recent theory suggests that traditional lagging indicators also possess characteristics of leading indicators, and vice versa, however empirical evidence is limited. Method: The current research investigated the temporal relationships among establishment-level injuries, near misses, and fatal events using injury and employment data from a sample of 24,910 mining establishments over a 12-year period. Results: While controlling for employee hours worked, establishment-level reported injuries and near misses were associated with of future fatal events across the sample of mines and over the time period studied. Fatal events were also associated with increases in future reported near misses, providing evidence of a cyclic relationship between them. Discussion: These findings challenge the strict categorization of injuries, near misses, and fatal events as lagging indicators. Practical applications: Understanding the KPIs that should be used to manage organizational safety, and how they can be used, is of critical practical importance. The results of the current study suggest that, depending on several considerations, metrics tied to negative safety incidents may be used to anticipate, and possibly prevent, future negative safety events.