An evaluation of risk assessment framework for industrial accidents in India

Due to rapid industrialization, with high population density and constraints of land, it is expected that level of risks arising from the hazardous industries will increase in India in the coming decades. However, 30 years after the Bhopal accident (1984), except a few discrete regulations, there is as yet no integrated system for assessing and managing risks arising out of these hazardous industries in India. The gravity of aspects related to the management of industrial risk still remains crucially important. In particular, there is no standard guideline on risk analysis methodology, acceptability or tolerability criteria, nor is there an accident database or a risk reduction strategy for the areas where risk levels are already high. On top of this, there are technical and legislative gaps in the institutional framework to implement any of the above mentioned issues. With the backdrop of the Bhopal gas tragedy, the objective of this paper is therefore to evaluate the effectiveness of a comprehensive risk assessment framework for the emerging economy of India, in order to control and/or to reduce the risk level that exists. In this context, regulations and policies pertaining to industrial risk assessment were reviewed.     

An uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of dynamic operational risk assessment model: A case study

In Dynamic Operational Risk Assessment (DORA) models, component repair time is an important parameter to characterize component state and the subsequent system-state trajectory. Specific distributions are fit to the industrial component repair time to be used as the input of Monte Carlo simulation of system-state trajectory. The objective of this study is to propose and apply statistical techniques to characterize the uncertainty and sensitivity on the distribution model selection and the associated parameters determination, in order to study how the DORA output that is the probability of operation out-of-control, can be apportioned by the distribution model selection. In this study, eight distribution fittings for each component are performed. Chi-square test, Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, and Anderson-Darling test are proposed to measure the goodness-of-fit to rank the distribution models for characterizing the component repair time distribution. Sensitivity analysis results show that the selection of distribution model among exponential distribution, gamma distribution, lognormal distribution and Weibull distribution to fit the industrial data has no significant impact on DORA results in the case study.     

Empirical analysis on contribution share of safety investment to economic growth: A case study of Chinese mining industry

Insufficient investment in safety is one of the most important reasons which lead to frequent accidents in Chinese mining industry. Safety input has long been regarded as a ‘sunk cost’, lacking output, and little attention from mining companies was focused on increasing safety input according to technical codes or technical requirements due to the narrow understanding on safety input. So, the empirical analysis on the contribution share of safety investment to economic growth is very important. In this paper, a new set of production safety indexes including six 1-level indexes for describing the safety level of mining production in China was constructed on the basis of Granger causality test. Meanwhile, a mining economic growth model was constructed on the basis of the new production safety indexes with co-integration theory and dynamic modeling system. The empirical results show that the production safety factor in the short term indeed drives the GDP growth in the mining industry although labor and capital input remain the major factors impacting mining economic growth, and its long term contribution share is 7.7%. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of production safety indexes, shows that the safety level of mining production increased more than 21-fold during 1991–2009, and the investment in mining technology development capability, mining safety production environment and mechanized level of mining should be the direction to focus for improving the safety level of mining production.     

Influence of parameter uncertainty on modeling of industrial ammonia reactor for safety and operability analysis

Chemical reactors represent probably the most hazardous units of chemical industry. Safety analysis of a chemical reactor requires basic knowledge of all particular processes which can be described by mathematical models. Most of the model parameters involved in the prediction of reactor behavior are uncertain. These uncertainties can cause discrepancies mainly in the prediction by models with nonlinear behavior and they can be the source of confusion in the design of chemical reactors and consequently also in the safety and operability analysis.The main aim of this work was to analyze the influence of uncertainties in the model parameters on the prediction of operating quantities by mathematical models with nonlinear behavior. Such analysis can be used for safety and operability analysis of an industrial catalytic ammonia reactor. The industrial fixed-bed reactor was used by a mathematical model with nine parameters. Analyses of the influence of uncertainty in a single model parameter and their combination were carried out by the Monte Carlo approach. It is shown that even a small uncertainty in one of the key parameters or in a combination of these key parameters can result in several steady states results of the operating quantities and can be the source of confusion in the design and consequently also in the safety and operability analysis.     

An economic framework for assessing the impact of injuries in professional football

The process of risk management, which is used throughout industry and commerce, involves identifying work activities and hazards and estimating, evaluating and controlling the associated risks. Within professional football, injury rates are several orders of magnitude higher than those reported in other occupations. This sector, therefore, provides an ideal organisational setting for developing and testing theories of health and safety management. A major risk for clubs arises from players being unavailable for selection through injury, with the possible effect that this may have on the clubs’ playing and financial performances. A statistically based risk management model, which utilised four relationships involving the parameters of team-quality, team-performance, club-turnover and club-salary, was developed. The model was based on data from 91 league clubs in English professional football over the seasons 1993/1994–1997/1998. Significant (P<0.01) strong (r=0.80–0.97) correlations were obtained for four log-log relationships between the four parameters. The model, which incorporated a player quality variable, has been demonstrated to describe and assess the impact of players’ injuries on clubs’ playing and financial performances. It is proposed that the model could therefore be used as a basis for cost-benefit analyses of injury prevention strategies in professional football. The results presented support earlier reports, which describe the impact of accidents to employees on the financial performance of their employers. Similar economic frameworks may also be applicable within other organisational settings for assessing the costs of accidents and for use in cost benefit analyses.     

Measurement of machinery safety level: European framework for product control: Particular case: Spanish framework for market surveillance

Current brief aims to introduce the concept of safety in European industrial sectors, particularly in mechanics and machinery industry. It also highlights the importance to ensure an even level of machinery safety along the European Union, setting up the appropriate frame and procedures to keep it under control. An overview over market surveillance activities for machinery (regulations, main actors and their roles) first at Community level, and secondly an approach to one of the Member States is also introduced.     

An economic evaluation of a participatory ergonomics process in an auto parts manufacturer

Problem

We assess the costs and consequences of a participatory ergonomics process at a Canadian car parts manufacturer from the perspective of the firm.

Method

Regression modeling was used with interrupted time series data to assess the impact of the process on several health measures. Consequences were kept in natural units for cost-effectiveness analysis, and translated into monetary units for cost-benefit analysis.

Results

The duration of disability insurance claims and the number of denied workers' compensation claims was significantly reduced. The cost-effectiveness ratio is $12.06 per disability day averted. The net present value is $244,416 for a 23-month period with a benefit-to-cost ratio of 10.6, suggesting that the process was worth undertaking (monetary units in 2001 Canadian dollars).

Discussion

Our findings emphasize the importance of considering a range of outcomes when evaluating an occupational health and safety intervention.

Impact on industry

Participatory ergonomics process can be cost-effective for a firm.     

An integrated framework of safety performance evaluation for oil and gas production plants: Application to a petroleum transportation station

Safety performance evaluation is a significant way to ensure the safety of oil and gas production plants. Various evaluation methods have been proposed to make safety evaluation more consistent and scientific. However, a major concern is that many existing safety evaluation measurements are still subjective and are not easy to obtain in a uniform way, which can be attributed to the challenges that process plants faced such as people having different knowledge levels, equipment with dispersed locations and management with many processes. This paper aims to display the impact of risk factors on system safety level in a succinct and visual way that may be expected to overcome subjective opinions from experts and provide a more pertinent and practical safety strategies. To this end, an integrated framework is developed, which considers crucial risk factors from pipeline, static equipment, dynamic equipment and management. First, Fault tree analysis (FTA) is used to explicitly determine the crucial r risk factors. Then, a novel fuzzy cognitive map cooperating with relative degree analysis model (FCM-RDA) is proposed to deal with the weigh distribution opinions. Finally, considering the oil and gas production process is a complex system, a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) is employed to calculate the overall safety level.     

An ontology-based framework for process monitoring and maintenance in petroleum plant

In production plants, monitoring and maintaining industrial processes and emergency shutdowns are not straightforward tasks due to the large number of events and alarms which are triggered during the plant shutdown process. It is also vitally important to provide decision support to stakeholders for efficient and effective monitoring and maintenance of production process. This paper presents a novel framework and design to enhance maintenance decisions based on the knowledge gathered through the process of monitoring. This monitoring process is based on signals which are triggered during the plant safety shutdown process. We have designed and implemented a framework using an ontology and business rules to define the logical structure and operation of the petroleum plant with the objective of monitoring the cause and effect of the petroleum plant shutdown process. To enhance maintenance decisions, we have extended the ontology and the framework to ensure that decision makers have sufficient information to make the right decision at the right time. The proposed extended framework is designed, implemented and evaluated using an example petroleum production plant as a case study.     

An extension of the fuzzy improved risk graph and fuzzy analytical hierarchy process for determination of chemical complex safety integrity levels

The risk graph (RG) is widely used to evaluate the safety integrity level (SIL) of safety instrument systems (SIS). However, subjective opinion-based conventional RGs cannot provide successful results for the problems of risk parameters, such as shortages or lack of data; hence, the output of a conventional approach lacks sufficient reliability. We introduced the fuzzy improved risk graph (FIRG), an extension of fuzzy set theory, to deal with possible ambiguities during SIL study and increase the reliability of conventional RGs. In the present study, the levels of consequences defined as linguistic terms were converted into qualitative intervals; therefore, by correlating the proposed approach with experts’ opinions and attributing weight factors, a desired SIL value was obtained. The output of this new approach can be compared directly with quantitative risk assessment techniques to improve the safety performance of industrial systems.     

Optimization of facility location and reallocation in an industrial plant through a multi-annual framework accounting for economic and safety issues

The industrial layout traditionally has been addressed accounting for the facilities distribution and installation since the first day of operation of the plant; this is, without considering future expansions that involve additional facilities in the future operation years. This way, this paper proposes a mathematical programming formulation for the optimal facility sitting and reallocation in an industry accounting for future expansions and involving simultaneously economic and safety objectives. The proposed formulation is based on a multi-annual framework and this corresponds to a multi-objective mixed integer linear programming problem. The proposed optimization approach was applied to a case study for the facility sitting (office buildings and control rooms) in an ethylene oxide plant. The economic objective function involves the minimization of the total annual cost accounting for the value of the money through the time and the safety objective function involves the minimization for the accumulated risk over the operation time. Results show the applicability of the proposed approach.     

An overview to CERSSO's self evaluation of the cost-benefit on the investment in occupational safety and health in the textile factories: "a step by step methodology"

INTRODUCTION: The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and CERSSO collaborated to develop a new Tool Kit (TK), which became available in May 2002. PAHO already had a TK in place, and CERSSO requested that one be developed for their needs. CERSSO wanted to enable managers and line workers in garment factories to self-diagnose plant and workstation hazards and to estimate the costs and benefits of investing in occupational safety and health (OSH) as a way to improve productivity and competitiveness. METHODS: For consistency, the collaborating organizations agreed to construct the TK according to PAHO's methodology. The instrument was developed to be comprehensive enough that any user can collect the data easily. It integrates epidemiologic, risk assessment, clinic, engineering, and accountability issues, organized to include step-by-step training in: (a) performing risk assessments in the workplaces (risk factors); (b) making cause-effect relationships; (c) improving decision making on OSH interventions; (d) doing calculations of direct and indirect costs and savings; and (e) doing calculation of the overall cost-benefit of OSH interventions. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Since July 2002, about 2,400 employees and officials from 736 garment factories, Ministries of Labor, Health, Social Security Institutes, and Technical Training Institutions of Central America and the Dominican Republic have used this instrument. Systematically, they have calculated a positive relationship of the investment (3 to 33 times). Employers are now aware of the financial rewards of investing in OSH. The TK is available in Spanish, Korean, and English. In July 2003, a software program in Spanish and English was developed (180 persons have been trained in the region), which requires less time to execute with better reliability.     

Methods and models in process safety and risk management: Past,present and future

The paper reviews past progress in the development of methods and models for process safety and risk management and highlights the present research trends; also it outlines the opinions of the authors regarding the future research direction in the field. Based on the open literature published in the leading journals in the field of safety, risk and reliability, the review covers the evolution of the methods and models developed for process safety and risk management. The methods and models are categorized as qualitative, semi-quantitative, quantitative and hybrid. The progress in the last few decades is discussed in the context of the past. Developments in the current decade formulate the basis of the present trends; future directions for research in these fields are also outlined. The aim of the article is to provide a historical development in this field with respect to the driving forces behind the development. It is expected that it will help researchers and industrial practitioners to gain a better understanding of the existing concepts. At the same time the aim is to provide direction to bridge the existing gaps through research and developments.     

Design support for the systematic integration of risk reduction into early chemical process design

Design for safety in the chemical industry is becoming a more explicit and well-organised process. However, it requires additional support tools to enable designers to pay attention to safety from the earliest conceptual design stage and through the subsequent detailing and to design more cost-effectively. This paper presents a more explicit approach called design for safety (DfS), which links with approaches already in use, such as layers of protection approach (LOPA). The method consists of two elements, a technology management environment (TME) aimed at supporting the interaction between the many contributors to safe design and a safety modelling language (SML). This provides a rigorous object-oriented language for conceptualising the requirements for risk control (barriers) and analysing their vulnerability to degradation or attack by other system elements or conditions. The method provides a focus for organising and applying existing knowledge about risk control and systematically learning from new knowledge to be gathered and supplied in supporting databases.     

Development of a theoretical framework for the evaluation of risk connected to accidental oxygen releases

A short-cut methodology for a fast estimation of hazards from oxygen releases and the evaluation of safety distances is presented. Starting from a historical survey on accidents involving oxygen releases and consequent scenarios, the approach includes analytical models for the quantification of incremental hazards due to oxygen releases, in non-obstructed areas, both for continuous and nearly instantaneous scenarios, adopting a simple Gaussian dispersion model. An example of the application of the model in a real case-study and relevant quantitative results are presented.     

Developing a new alternative risk assessment framework in the work sites by including a stochastic and a deterministic process: A case study for the Greek Public Electric Power Provider

An individual method cannot achieve the optimum risk-assessment result in the worksites, and future perspectives should focus on the parallel application of a deterministic approach with a stochastic approach. In particular, the risk analysis and assessment techniques of the deterministic (DET) approach are classified into three main categories: (a) the qualitative, (b) the quantitative, and (c) the hybrid techniques (qualitative-quantitative, semi-quantitative). Furthermore, the stochastic (STO) approach includes the classic statistical approach (CSA) and the accident forecasting modeling (AFM). The objective of this paper is triple: (a) the presentation and classification of the main risk analysis and risk assessment methods and techniques of the deterministic approach and the stochastic approach as well, (b) the development and presentation of a new alternative risk assessment framework (called as STODET) including a stochastic and a deterministic process, and (c) the application of STODET in the Greek Public Power Corporation (PPC) by using occupational accidents that have been recorded, during the 17-year period of 1993-2009. In particular, the STODET application proves that required actions (or suppressive measures) are essential and must be taken in a medium-term period (1 working year) for abolishing the hazard sources.     

城市公共消防安全风险预警评价体系构建研究

通过运用理论研究方法构建了城市公共消防安全风险预警评价指标体系,结合层次分析法和模糊综合方法构建了城市公共消防安全风险预警评价模型与评价思路,并根据评价的结果提出了加强城市公共消防安全的相关对策建议。