Risk analysis and assessment methodologies in the work sites: On a review, classification and comparative study of the scientific literature of the period 2000–2009

Risk management and loss prevention strategies for fertilizer industries

Various toxic and flammable gases exist in the fertilizer industry whose release quantification is very important regarding emergency preparedness, planning and response, and well-being of the community. ALOHA threat zones and threat at a point coupled with MARPLOT are evaluated for ammonia, methane, carbon dioxide and hydrogen release, and outdoor and indoor concentrations of these gases in nearby residences and highways calculated. These footprints are calculated using ALOHA which requires inputs such as site data, site location, building type, gas name, atmospheric inputs, release source information and dispersion model to display the threat zone, which can then be shown on MARPLOT. Potential impact of these releases on the community is mitigated through releasing equipment isolations, water sprays for dilutions, dilutions through steam or air and emergency sirens for information. This article covers hazards in the fertilizer industry, and provides general guidelines for operational staff of any industry to mitigate hazards.

A hybrid approach based on k-means and SVM algorithms in selection of appropriate risk assessment methods for sectors

Every work environment contains different types of risks and interactions between risks. Therefore, the method to be used when making a risk assessment is very important. When determining which risk assessment method (RAM) to use, there are many factors such as the types of risks in the work environment, the interactions of these risks with each other, and their distance from the employees. Although there are many RAMs available, there is no RAM that will suit all workplaces and which method to choose is the biggest question. There is no internationally accepted scale or trend on this subject. In the study, 26 sectors, 10 different RAMs and 10 criteria were determined. A hybrid approach has been designed to determine the most suitable RAMs for sectors by using k-means clustering and support vector machine (SVM) classification algorithms, which are machine learning (ML) algorithms. First, the data set was divided into subsets with the k-means algorithm. Then, the SVM algorithm was run on all subsets with different characteristics. Finally, the results of all subsets were combined to obtain the result of the entire dataset. Thus, instead of the threshold value determined for a single and large cluster affecting the entire cluster and being made mandatory for all of them, a flexible structure was created by determining separate threshold values for each sub-cluster according to their characteristics. In this way, machine support was provided by selecting the most suitable RAMs for the sectors and eliminating the administrative and software problems in the selection phase from the manpower. The first comparison result of the proposed method was found to be the hybrid method: 96.63%, k-means: 90.63 and SVM: 94.68%. In the second comparison made with five different ML algorithms, the results of the artificial neural networks (ANN): 87.44%, naive bayes (NB): 91.29%, decision trees (DT): 89.25%, random forest (RF): 81.23% and k-nearest neighbours (KNN): 85.43% were found.

Determining occupational accidents baseline ratios by considering a synthetic population: The case of Spain

In most countries, a government agency or collaborating organization gathers information on occupational accidents. Comparisons based on a single factor such as autonomous community, activity sector or others, often leads to contradictory conclusions. The use of this information for comparison is not immediate because the different characteristics considered give place to different possible comparisons. The elaboration of a single baseline for each set of characteristics is addressed. The method proposed comes from the data available in Spain but could be applied to other cases. The method consists of: (1) selecting factors-those selected are age, sex, autonomous community and activity; (2) the generation of a synthetic population based on data from a survey and general proportions by applying the Optimal Representative Sample Weighting (rsw); and (3) the prediction of the accidents ratio for each set of characteristic by using a XGBoost decision trees ensemble. The results confirm the appropriateness of the method.

Risk assessment for handling hazardous substances within the European industry: Available methodologies and research streams

After the Seveso disaster occurred more than 40 years ago, there has been an increasing awareness of the potential impacts that similar accident events can occur in a wide range of process establishments, where the handling and production of hazardous substances pose a real threat to society and the environment. In these industrial sites denominated "Seveso sites," the urgent need for an effective strategy emerged markedly to handle hazardous activities and to ensure safe conditions. Since then, the main challenging research issues have focused on how to prevent such accident events and how to mitigate their consequences leading to the development of many risk assessment methodologies. In recent years, researchers and practitioners have tried to provide useful overviews of the existing risk assessment methodologies proposing several reviews. However, these reviews are not exhaustive because they are either dated or focus only on one specific topic (e.g., liquefied natural gas, domino effect, etc.). This work aims to overcome the limitations of the current reviews by providing an up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the risk assessment methodologies for handling hazardous substances within the European industry. In particular, we have focused on the current techniques for hazards and accident scenarios identification, as well as probability and consequence analyses for both onshore and offshore installations. Thus, we have identified the research streams that have characterized the activities of researchers and practitioners over the years, and we have then presented and discussed the different risk assessment methodologies available concerning the research stream that they belong to.

Evaluation and comparison of selected methodologies to investigate occupational accidents

BACKGROUND: The choice of the “right” methodology to carry out the occupational accident investigation process is not an easy task. Each methodology has different conceptual and practical characteristics. The choice will depend to a large extent on the conceptual accident model being used. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study has been to evaluate and compare a set of nine methodologies recognised as the most widely used in the field of occupational accident investigation. METHODS: For this purpose, six evaluation criteria are used which have already been applied and validated by the scientific community with a clear emphasis on the holistic nature of these methodologies. RESULTS: The results show a detailed analysis of the conceptual, methodological and practical characteristics of the nine selected occupational accident investigation methodologies. The conceptual framework of each of the methodologies, their holistic characteristics in terms of whether they cover the complete information cycle and its possible interrelation, reliability and validity of the methodologies, the experience required for their application, the flexibility in terms of being able to be used in different work environments and finally the ability of the methodology to motivate organisational improvement are presented. CONCLUSIONS: From this study, it is clear that the analysis of occupational accident investigation it is becoming increasingly necessary to employ scientific methodologies with a clear proactive approach in order to meet the challenges of changing socio-technical systems.

Environmental health and risk assessment metrics with special mention to biotransfer, bioaccumulation and biomagnification of environmental pollutants

The environment pollutants, which are landed up in environment because of human activities like urbanization, mining and industrializations, affects human health, plants and animals. The living organisms present in environment are constantly affected by the toxic pollutants through direct contact or bioaccumulation of chemicals from the environment. The toxic and hazardous pollutants are easily transferred to different environmental matrices like land, air and water bodies such as surface and ground waters. This comprehensive review deeply discusses the routes and causes of different environmental pollutants along with their toxicity, impact, occurrences and fate in the environment. Environment health and risk assessment tools that are used to evaluate the harmfulness, exposure of living organisms to pollutants and the amount of pollutant accumulated are explained with help of bio-kinetic models. Biotransfer, toxicity factor, biomagnification and bioaccumulation of different pollutants in the air, water and marine ecosystems are critically addressed. Thus, the presented survey would be collection of correlations those addresses the factors involved in assessing the environmental health and risk impacts of distinct environmental pollutants.

Risk prioritization model driven by success factor in the light of multicriteria decision making

Some factors in the product development process can increase success. Evaluating the risks and success factors is necessary for a more successful product development process. Some inadequacies arise in classical risk assessment methods due to the subjective nature of likelihood and severity ratings. Different probability and impact values can give the same risk size. Due to these inadequacies, doubts about the accuracy of risk prioritization may arise. In this study, a new risk prioritization model is proposed to eliminate these doubts and to consider their contribution to the success of the process they affect while prioritizing the risks, with a detailed literature review and the support of the experts of the applied company, the risks affecting the product development process. The importance levels of risks and success factors were calculated using the analytical hierarchy process. With the proposed model, unlike the classical method, when calculating the risk size, the risk weight and the total score from the success factors are added to the likelihood and severity values of the risk. Thus, companies will obtain more detailed and objective results, considering success factors and risk importance levels, and use the resources they allocate for risk reduction activities more efficiently.

Creating Quality-Based Smart Sustainable Public Parking Enterprises: A Methodology to Reframe Organizations into Smart Organizations

Enterprise sustainability is a key aim in the fourth industrial revolution era, requiring a new approach based on intelligent technologies that considers the new roles of leadership and sustainability as well as the new trends in emerging smart technologies, with a new focus on Society 5.0. Smart parking has a significant role in fostering the determinants of sustainability in public parking enterprises and achieving adequate mobility in smart cities. Thus, smart parking is the subject of the research presented in this paper. This study defines the vital processes, including leadership processes and technologies needed for smart parking, managed by innovative public parking enterprises. Having this in mind, trends, key facts, the results of present innovative technology enterprises, and methodologies for designing and establishing smart public parking enterprises are analyzed. This paper aims to determine the sustainability of parking enterprises in their current states by developing a MORSO methodology. The MORSO methodology includes independent variables, including the leadership level of the intelligent technologies used, quality of the business processes, and risk related to the business processes, and a dependent variable, the sustainability of smart public parking enterprises. The MORSO methodology also includes steps for the definition of indices related to variables that could be assessed by appropriate techniques such as using questionnaires. Finally, the MORSO methodology introduces steps by which statistical approaches and artificial neural networks (ANN) are applied to test hypotheses regarding correlations between independent and dependent variables. The results of the presented model case study application show that there are strong correlations between smart sustainability and leadership (0.769), quality (0.904), and risk (−0.884), respectively. Additionally, at the level of the presented case study, the results of the application of the ANN indicate that the values of the dependent variable in the following time period can be determined with high accuracy, based on the knowledge of the values from the previous period, with a regression coefficient value of R = 0.99482. Finally, in this way, the transition from existing public enterprises to sustainable smart public parking enterprises is envisioned.

Bayesian Networks for Preprocessing Water Management Data

Environmental data often present inconveniences that make modeling tasks difficult. During the phase of data collection, two problems were found: (i) a block of five months of data was unavailable, and (ii) no information was collected from the coastal area, which made flood-risk estimation difficult. Thus, our aim is to explore and provide possible solutions to both issues. To avoid removing a variable (or those missing months), the proposed solution is a BN-based regression model using fixed probabilistic graphical structures to impute the missing variable as accurately as possible. For the second problem, the lack of information, an unsupervised classification method based on BN was developed to predict flood risk in the coastal area. Results showed that the proposed regression solution could predict the behavior of the continuous missing variable, avoiding the initial drawback of rejecting it. Moreover, the unsupervised classifier could classify all observations into a set of groups according to upstream river behavior and rainfall information, and return the probability of belonging to each group, providing appropriate predictions about the risk of flood in the coastal area.

Influence of human factors on risk associated with pressure equipment

Objectives. The analysis of previous research shows that indicators of human factors have not been sufficiently integrated into the models for risk assessment of pressure equipment to date. Therefore, the goal of this article is the creation of a universal measurement scale to assess the current condition of the impacts of human factors on the risk of pressure equipment exploitation in factories and plants. Methods. A research instrument with nine constructs and 61 dimensions was designed and tested on a sample size of 268 companies, by reliability, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Results. The final model contains exact quantification of nine constructs described by 27 influencing human factors on risk associated with pressure equipment exploitation. Conclusions. The most influencing construct is 'communication', whereas the construct 'organizational change management' is the least influencing. Also, applying Pareto analysis shows that the most important constructs identified are 'communication', 'safety and health at work', 'potentially hazardous materials and equipment', 'maintenance/inspection', 'human error' and 'trainings and competences of employees for crisis situations'. It is a recommendation for the process industry enterprises, where pressure equipment is in operation, to include the obtained model in the risk assessment processes they are using.

Sustainability Management Model Based on Risk Analysis and Implementation of the Model

In modern business management, the effective management of organizational structures based on goals within the scope of modern management concepts, as well as the continuous improvement of processes for increasing competitiveness, are critical. The purpose of this study is to discuss the matter of risk identification and analysis, practices that are seen in many different fields within the scope of the notion of sustainable management. It aimed to add the dimensions of targets and risk analysis to the scope of process analysis and development, within this study. The stages, starting with the definition of the processes in the process model through the targets based on the risk analysis, are transformed into a quality assurance cycle and completed with the determination, monitoring, and evaluation of the sustainable process development activities. The performance indicators of the business processes in a textile business were determined, and the identification of a model structure with systematic traceability was provided, in practice. The opportunities and threats encountered in achieving the determined goals were identified. The defined factors were examined within the scope of the failure mode and effects analysis and risk analysis methods. The risk evaluations were performed using fuzzy numbers. The results obtained by fuzzy failure mode effects analysis were evaluated through the MATLAB Fuzzy Logic Design Toolbox model. Risks were ranked as a result of the evaluation, and process development activities were chosen.

Developing a Risk Analysis Strategy Framework for Impact Assessment in Information Security Management Systems: A Case Study in IT Consulting Industry

Organizations must be committed to ensuring the confidentiality, availability, and integrity of the information in their possession to manage legal and regulatory obligations and to maintain trusted business relationships. Information security management systems (ISMSs) support companies to better deal with information security risks and cyber-attacks. Although there are many different approaches to successfully implementing an ISMS in a company, the most important and time-consuming part of establishing an ISMS is a risk assessment. The purpose of this paper was to develop a risk assessment framework that a company followed in the information technology sector to conduct the risk assessment process to comply with International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 27001. The findings analyze the conditions that force organizations to invest in protecting information and the benefits they can derive from this process. In particular, the paper delves into a multinational IT consulting services company that undertakes and implements large business support installation and customization projects. It explains the risk assessment process and the management of the necessary configurations so that its functions are acceptable and in line with information security standards. Finally, it presents the difficulties and challenges encountered.

A novel approach to assess occupational risks and prevention of hazards: the house of safety & prevention

Risk management is the key factor to obtain safety in the working environment and its effectiveness increases with accuracy assessment and robust analysis. However, it is hard to succeed because of uncertainties in the working environment. Therefore, there are a lot of risk assessment methods in the literature to assess occupational health and safety risks. The traditional risk assessment methods handle each activity in the working environment separately and they do not consider the interactions among them. Furthermore, in these methods, potential outcomes of the risk parameters are considered based on the most possible outcome although there may be more than one potential outcome. Differ from the traditional methods, The House of Safety method has been proposed to consider all potential outcomes and handle the interactions among the activities. In this study, an extension of The House of Safety is proposed to consider interactions among potential risks and to determine the most effective prevention method based on the potential risks. Hence, this extension provides an evaluation of the whole system. The proposed model has been developed by integrating Fuzzy Inference System (FIS), Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP), and DEMATEL into Quality Function Deployment (QFD). In this direction, FIS is used to determine activity-related probabilities, “FAHP” is utilized to identify all possible damage potentials of risks, and the DEMATEL is used to clarify interactions among risks. Finally, all information produced by these methods were aggregated to obtain total risk scores by using QFD. In addition, a second home has been created to link prevention and risks. Therefore, an effective prevention plan has been made to eliminate priority risks with all effective parameters. This stage provides the opportunity for optimum prevention plan against risk or risk groups dominating the system at the same time. In this study, unlike traditional methods including a partial risk assessment perspective, an integrated method that takes into account the risks on their own and the interactions between them is proposed in the literature, and the proposed approach has been applied to an open pit mine.

Risk-Acceptance Criteria in Occupational Health and Safety Risk-Assessment—The State-of-the-Art through a Systematic Literature Review

The utilization of risk acceptance criteria (RAC) can help a business to judge whether the risk level concerning any process involved in its working environment is acceptable or not, especially when the risk has a significant societal impact. Thus, the main intention of this study is to make known the current state-of-the-art concerning RACs and to propose new interpretations of it by surveying, for first time, the scientific literature about the RACs associated with the occupational health and safety (OHS) risk-assessment methodologies (RAA). A second objective of this work is the attainment of a prediction for the evolution of the quantity of the publications concerning OHS-RACs, and a third one is the derivation of an algorithm (via a flow-chart) in order to illustrate the process of the formation of new OHS-RACs. The work consists of two parts, (a) exploring and presenting methods of developing RACs in OHS; (b) classifying, analyzing, and benchmarking relevant published scientific articles by surveying the Scopus data base with proper search-hints, through a time interval of 20 years (January2000–December 2019). The review has defined a plethora of RAC-papers with reference to OHS, which is a remarkable percentage in comparison with the other fields aggregated, and this outcome proves that the issue of utilizing RACs is fundamental for the field of OHS. Additionally, it has been deduced that, day after day, there is an increasing tendency for the scientific community to develop and use RACs in the field of occupational safety, as this is evident by their frequent reference to the risk analysis and assessment (RAA) process. Our specific research methodology has been compatible with the PRISMA protocol. A prediction for the evolution of the quantity of the OHS-RAC publications is also given by confirming the Poisson stochastic process. Finally, we propose a generic guideline framework that can contribute to the establishment of new empirically-generated OHS-RACs.

Safety Considerations by Synergy of HAZOP/DMRA with Safety Color Maps—Applications on: A Crude-Oil Processing Industry/a Gas Transportation System

A collaborative framework by the synergy of Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) process and the Decision-Matrix Risk Assessment (DMRA) in association with safety-color mapping (SCM) is presented, in order to identify critical points and prioritize risks, and also to visualize the occupational safety and health (OSH) situation, at the workplaces (i) of a sour crude-oil processing industry (SCOPI), and (ii) of a measurement and regulatory station (MRS) in a gas transportation system (GTS), situated in Greece. Firstly, the conventional HAZOP analysis is executed in order to identify the potential fault causes of abnormal conditions (deviations) in the plants. The application of the DMRA-modus is valuable to rank the identified risks (hierarchy of risks). In view of the results, both of the HAZOP pattern (for identifying the hazards) and also the DMRA one (for assessing and ranking the risks), SCMs have been derived for the specific workplaces of the SCOPI and the MRS/GTS station, which could be a precious means for safety managers to appraise the urgency of investing limited budgets in measures preventing particular types of deviations, and also protecting the employees.

Differences in attitudes of operators and managers on risk management of pressure equipment

Objectives. Previous research indicates that models for risk assessment of pressure equipment have not sufficiently or adequately integrated indicators of human factors and organizational factors. Methods. The goal of this article is to check the differences in attitudes of operators and managers engaged in the area of pressure equipment risk management. A questionnaire was designed and data were then collected from 253 operators and managers working with the same pressure equipment in Serbia. By applying a paired t test, differences in their attitudes were checked for issues described by the constructs of communication (COM), potentially hazardous materials and equipment (PHME), process safety (PS), safety and health at work (SHW), organizational change management (OCM), maintenance/inspection (MI) procedures, human error (HE), trainings and competences of employees for crisis situations (TCECS) and conducting research after accidents (CRAA). Results. It is statistically evident that the coincidence of attitudes accounted for less than 20% of questions. The highest coincidence is shown for PHME and TCECS, where one-half of the dimensions of the given constructs indicate that there are no statistically significant differences. Conclusions. The differences found could be used as an explanation for high-risk levels of pressure equipment exploitation and how they influence it.

Risk assessment of educational support staff's work in schools

BACKGROUND

Educational support staff (educational staff) in schools perform widely distinctive activities according to their occupation and work process.

OBJECTIVE

This study analyzes the possible incidents for each occupation and work process, and suggests a risk matrix prioritizing the risks of educational staff's work.

METHODS

A total of 1,566 injuries of educational staff, registered for occupational injuries and illnesses between 2015 and 2016, were used to develop the risk matrix considering injuries, sick leave days, and disabilities.

RESULTS

Among the 1,566 injuries, 'Cook-cooking/serving: Burn' (8.5%) was the most frequent incident. 'Cook-manual materials handling (MMH): musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs)' (241.6 sick leave days) was the most severe incident, and the number of disabilities was high in the forms of 'Cook-cooking/serving: MSDs.' According to risk assessment results, possible incidents predicted as 'High' level of risk management were in the forms of 'Cook-cooking/serving: MSDs,' 'Cook-MMH: Slip and trip,' 'Cook-cleaning/repairing: Fall from a height,' 'Cook-walking: Slip and trip,' 'Cook-MMH: MSDs,' 'Cook-cooking/serving: Burn,' 'Cook-cleaning/repairing: Slip and trip,' 'Custodian-cleaning/repairing: Fall from a height,' and 'Instructor-walking: Slip and trip.'

CONCLUSIONS

The results can be used to develop an effective injury prevention policy, and to allocate resources for risk management in ensuring school safety.

Occupational health risk assessment at healthcare institutions: Developing a semi-quantitative risk method

BACKGROUND

Environmental hazards in healthcare institutions affect the quality of patient care as well as personnel and patient safety.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to develop and apply a semi-quantitative risk assessment method to calculate occupational health risk levels with regard to the sensitivities of healthcare institutions.

METHODS

The present research was conducted in three phases. In phases 1 and 2, the model was developed using a review of different risk assessment methods, extracting expert opinions (N = 10) through semi-structured interviews, and using the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP). In phase 3, in order to validate the proposed method, one of the five public hospitals was randomly selected and a case study comprising 6 sections was performed.

RESULTS

A total of 43 health risks were identified and evaluated using the present method, 41.86% of which were at very high levels, 16.27% at high levels, 30.23% at substantial ones, 9.3% at medium and 2.32% at low levels. The highest health risks were found in paraclinical and operating room wards.

CONCLUSION

To overcome the shortcomings of the proposed health risk assessment methods, a semi-quantitative method was used in the present study to more accurately calculate the risk levels in the healthcare institutions and also calculate the risk level of each hospital unit. The proposed semi-quantitative method can be used as a tool for assessing occupational health risks as a key element of risk management. In addition, by focusing on an appropriate framework for occupational health risk assessment, specialists in the organization will be able to take significant and effective steps to implement an efficient risk management system.

Cyber-Attacks Risk Analysis Method for Different Levels of Automation of Mining Processes in Mines Based on Fuzzy Theory Use

The rising automation level and development of the Industry 4.0 concept in the mining sector increase the risk of cyber-attacks. As a result, this article focuses on developing a risk analysis method that integrates Kaplan's and Garrick's approach and fuzzy theory. The proposed approach takes into account the level of automation of the operating mining processes. Moreover, it follows five main steps, including identifying the automation level in a selected mine, definition of cyber-attack targets, identification of cyber-attack techniques, definition of cyber-attack consequences, and risk ratio assessment. The proposed risk assessment procedure was performed according to three cyber-attack targets (databases, internal networks, machinery) and seven selected types of cyber-attack techniques. The fuzzy theory is implemented in risk parameter estimation for cyber-attack scenario occurrence in the mining industry. To illustrate the given method's applicability, seven scenarios for three levels of mine automation are analyzed. The proposed method may be used to reveal the current cybersecurity status of the mine. Moreover, it will be a valuable guide for mines in which automation is planned in the near future.

A hybrid risk assessment method for mining sector based on QFD, fuzzy inference system, and AHP

Conventional risk assessment methods are widely used for industrial safety applications. However, there are serious obstacles to their usage as; (i) all of the potential hazards are considered as an independent event, (ii) various risks are identified based on these hazards, (iii) risk magnitudes of these risks are obtained without considering interdependencies among the hazards, and then (iv) the protective measures against the defined risks are taken based on these risk magnitudes. Therefore, conventional methods do not provide any assessment for overall risks in the working environment. Furthermore, although an accident may cause different severity such as loss of working days, loss of limbs, occupational disease, and death, the conventional methods do not consider all potential consequences of any accident, simultaneously. The main objective of this paper is to propose an effective risk assessment approach by using the fuzzy set theory, Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Fuzzy Inference System (FIS), and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methods to quantify the risk of any hazard considering interdependencies among all potential hazards and consequences in working environment. Within the scope of this research, an application in the mining sector has been presented to illustrate the validation and the effectiveness of the proposed approach**.

How can process safety and a risk management approach guide pandemic risk management?

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) brought the world to a halt in March 2020. Various prediction and risk management approaches are being explored worldwide for decision making. This work adopts an advanced mechanistic model and utilizes tools for process safety to propose a framework for risk management for the current pandemic. A parameter tweaking and an artificial neural network-based parameter learning model have been developed for effective forecasting of the dynamic risk. Monte Carlo simulation was used to capture the randomness of the model parameters. A comparative analysis of the proposed methodologies has been carried out by using the susceptible, exposed, infected, quarantined, recovered, deceased (SEIQRD) model. A SEIQRD model was developed for four distinct locations: Italy, Germany, Ontario, and British Columbia. The learning-based approach resulted in better outcomes among the models tested in the present study. The layer of protection analysis is a useful framework to analyze the effect of different safety measures. This framework is used in this work to study the effect of non-pharmaceutical interventions on pandemic risk. The risk profiles suggest that a stage-wise releasing scenario is the most suitable approach with negligible resurgence. The case study provides valuable insights to practitioners in both the health sector and the process industries to implement advanced strategies for risk assessment and management. Both sectors can benefit from each other by using the mathematical models and the management tools used in each, and, more importantly, the lessons learned from crises.

Qualitative Approach to Environmental Risk Assessment in Transport

The purpose of this paper is to present the development of a qualitative approach to environmental risk assessment (QAERA) in transport. The approach is described as a model developed for the future software tool which will be utilizable as a risk decision support system. The basic part is aimed on developing a quantitative environmental risk assessment. Thus, this paper describes a set of 6 pillars of safety and security. Accordingly, the paper contains both chosen safety and security indicators and selected criteria for assessing the risk of launching the environmental change of global model thinking in the transport sector. The environmental risk assessment as a global model of thinking was originally based on historical experience but, nowadays, it is changing. Based on new expert knowledge, more precisely, on input of new global data, paper displays an environmental risk assessment with actual interpretation. The discussion of the paper is oriented to support research results, a new knowledge-oriented approach to global climate changes, using suitable risk assessment methods and technics. The result of the paper is a new approach for the modeling of environmental risk assessment in the transport sector.

Study of Major-Accident Risk Assessment Techniques in the Environmental Impact Assessment Process

Design, implementation, and operation of any project are affected by the environment where it is developed; at the same time, the project will influence the environment, since during its life cycle it can cause an impact on it. This impact can lead to social, economic, and environmental results. Directive 2014/52/EU, on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment, reflects the obligation for the project promoter to consider, in the Environmental Impact Study (EIS) of the project, their vulnerability (exposure and resilience) to major accidents and/or disasters, evaluating both the risk and their effects on the environment, in case these major accidents and/or disasters appear. The IEC 31.010:2019 Risk management—Risk assessment techniques standard defines 45 risk appreciation techniques that are useful when analysing the risks, in general. The objective of this paper is to review these 45 techniques, and establish which ones can be used for the assessment of accidents or disasters required in the specific environmental impact assessment process to accomplish with the regulation. After the revision, the authors propose five risks appreciation techniques that could be used for the assessment of major accidents and or disasters in projects for which EIA has to be carried out.

Risk Assessment of Work Accident in Container Terminals Using the Fault Tree Analysis Method

The use of containers in the world is increasing every year in line with international trade flows. In very complex container terminal operations, the risk of work accidents is inevitable and can happen at any time. Therefore, this paper aimed to identify accidents and potential risks occurring in the container terminals. For the case study, the analysis was used the data of accidents during five years in one of the major container terminals in Indonesia. Risk assessment is carried out using the risk matrix method to get the level of risk. The risk that has the highest level is analyzed by using the Fault Tree Analysis method. From the results of the risk assessment shows the container fell to the berth when loading and unloading have the highest risk value. While the results of the Fault Tree Analysis show that traffic accidents are the biggest potential risk, which is 41.8% compared to other accidents. Moreover, human factors especially due to the negligence in operating vehicles or equipment as well as the damage of equipment were the highest common causes of accidents in the container terminal. Based on these results the contribution offered is the risk control options for terminal operators to reduce the possibility of safety failure in the container terminal.

A Joint Stochastic/Deterministic Process with Multi-Objective Decision Making Risk-Assessment Framework for Sustainable Constructions Engineering Projects—A Case Study

This study, on the one hand, develops a newfangled risk assessment and analysis (RAA) methodological approach (the MCDM-STO/DET one) for sustainable engineering projects by the amalgamation of a multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) process with the joint-collaboration of a deterministic (DET) and a stochastic (STO) process. On the other hand, proceeds to the application of MCDM-STO/DET at the workplaces of the Greek construction sector and also of the fixed-telecommunications technical projects of OTE SA (that is, the Greek Telecommunications Organization S.A.) by means of real accident data coming from two official State databases, namely of “SEPE” (Labor Inspectorate, Hellenic Ministry of Employment) and of “IKA” (Social Insurance Institution, Hellenic Ministry of Health), all the way through the period of the years2009–2016.Consequently, the article’s objectives are the following: (i) The implementation and execution of the joint MCDM-STO/DET framework, and (ii) to make known that the proposed MCDM-STO/DET algorithm can be a precious method for safety managers (and/or decision-makers) to ameliorate occupational safety and health (OSH) and to endorse the sustainable operation of technical or engineering projects as well. Mainly, we mingle two different configurations of the MCDM method, initially the Analytical Hierarchy-Process (the typical-AHP), and afterwards the Fuzzy-Extended AHP (the FEAHP) one, along with the Proportional Risk Assessment Technique (PRAT) and the analysis of Time-Series Processes (TSP), and finally with the Fault-Tree Analysis (FTA).

An Approach to Health and Safety Assessment in Industrial Parks

Safety is a fundamental aspect to take into account in the design, construction and operation of industrial parks. Therefore, it is important to know how to deal with safety in this type of facility, and how to deal with risk analysis. This document provides information related to the industrial park risk assessment process to improve the health and safety of workers in these places. A search and consultation of references related to occupational health and safety management systems is carried out, and it is found that, although there is adequate protection, both in relation to the safety of workers in industrial parks and the safety of personnel outside the facilities, it is helpful to establish a health and safety risk assessment to identify hazards and hazardous events, evaluate associated risks, and select techniques or strategies (opportunities) to manage those risks after prioritization. Following the implementation of the selected techniques, their effectiveness can then be monitored in order to avoid incidents. This document can be a model for future implementation of a health and safety management system based in ISO 45001:2018.

Quantitative FTA using Monte Carlo analyses in a pharmaceutical plant

The evaluation of faults in a multipurpose pharmaceutical pilot plant used for production of polymer particles was performed, integrating traditional Fault Tree Analyses (FTA) and Monte Carlo procedures and employing tools of the quality risk management methodology for production of medicines. The plant was divided into four basic processes: (i) receipt and sampling of materials; (ii) treatment of purified water; (iii) reaction; and (iv) lyophilization and purification. For each process, the most critical failure was selected, and the FTA was built. Selection of basic events considered the most important effects on the final quality of the medicine. Then, the FTA was reduced to basic events using Boolean algebra. The quantitative assessment was made by assigning failure rate values for each event. The reliability data of the failure rates were based on the literature that deals with similar processes. The frequencies for each fault were determined through Monte Carlo simulations, considering that fault probability distributions followed the exponential distribution. When failure rate (ʎ) data are available, the quality management can establish a prediction of plant behavior over a period. This scenario is consistent and coherent with practices of pharmaceutical sites, since occurrence of high rates of failure must be corrected immediately in order to preserve the safety of the operation.

Analysis of a Historical Accident in a Spanish Coal Mine

There has been a long history of coal mine accidents and these, usually, involve serious injuries, fatalities, and the destruction of facilities. In the seventies, an explosion killed 28 miners in a Spanish coal mine. This paper gives insight into the main factors of the accident by means of the causation mode, using two well-known alternatives: (1) the method from the Spanish Instituto Nacional de Seguridad y Salud en el Trabajo (INSST), where the causes and circumstances of the accident are classified into immediate causes and basic causes, and (2) the Feyer and Williamson method, where the classification is done using precursor events and contributing factors. The analysis identifies the lessons to be learned from the disaster. Both methods have given very similar results, verifying the goodness of the analysis. Methane emissions due to a variation in the exploitation method, the electrical installation, and a lack of safety procedures and training were the main causes of the accident. These findings explain the real causes of this accident and can be very valuable for the prevention of future accidents.

Pythagorean fuzzy VIKOR-based approach for safety risk assessment in mine industry

INTRODUCTION

Underground mining is considered one of the most hazardous industries and is often associated with serious work-related fatalities; this paper addresses job-related hazards and associated risks.

METHOD

A risk assessment approach is proposed (Pythagorean fuzzy environment) and a case study is carried out in an underground copper and zinc mine.

RESULTS

Results of the study demonstrate that hazards can be categorized into different risk levels via compromised solutions of the fuzzy approach.

CONCLUSION

The study provides a theoretical contribution by suggesting a Pythagorean fuzzy numbers-based VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (PFVIKOR) approach. Moreover, it contributes to improving overall safety levels of underground mining by considering and advising on the potential hazards of risk management. Practical applications: The proposed approach will improve the existing safety risk assessment mechanism in underground copper and zinc mining.

Preliminary Human Safety Assessment (PHSA) for the Improvement of the Behavioral Aspects of Safety Climate in the Construction Industry

Occupational safety in the construction industry still represents a relevant problem at a global level. In fact, the complexity of working activities in this sector requires a comprehensive approach that goes beyond normative compliance to guarantee safer working conditions. In particular, empirical research on the factors influencing the unsafe behavior of workers needs to be augmented. Thus, the relationship between human factors and safety management issues following a bottom-up approach was investigated. In particular, an easy-to-use procedure that can be used to better address workers’ safety needs augmenting the company’s safety climate and supporting safety management issues was developed. Such an approach, based on the assessment of human reliability factors, was verified in a real case study concerning the users of concrete mixer trucks. The results showed that the majority of human failures were action and retrieval errors, underlining the importance of theoretical and practical training programs as a means to improve safety behavior. In such a context, information and communication activities also resulted beneficially to augment the company’s safety climate. The proposed approach, despite its qualitative nature, allows a clearer understanding of workers’ perceptions of hazards and their risk-taking behavior, providing practical cues to monitor and improve the behavioral aspects of safety climate. Hence, these first results can contribute to augmenting safety knowledge in the construction industry, providing a basis for further investigations on the causalities related to human performances, which are considered a key element in the prevention of accidents.

International Occupational Health and Safety Management-Systems Standards as a Frame for the Sustainability: Mapping the Territory

A significant part of literature has shown that the adoption of Sustainability and Health-Safety management systems from organizations bears some substantial benefits since such systems (i) create a suitable frame for the sustainable development, implementation and review of the plans and/or processes, necessary to manage occupational health-safety (OHS) in their workplaces and (ii) imply innovative thinking and practices in fields of economics, policy-making, legislation, health and education. To this context, the paper targets at analysing current sustainability and OHSMSs in order to make these issues more comprehend, clear and functional for scholars and practitioners. Therefore, a literature survey has been conducted to map the territory by focusing on two interrelated tasks. The first one includes the presentation of the main International Management Systems (IMS) with focus on Sustainability and OHS (S_OHSMS) topics and the second task depicts a statistical analysis of the literature-review findings (for the years 2006–2017). In particular, the main purposes of the literature research were: (i) the description of key points of OHSMS and sustainability standards, (ii) the comparative analysis of their characteristics, taking into account several settled evaluation-criteria and (iii) the statistical analysis of the survey’s findings, while our study’s primary aim is the reinforcement of OHMSs’ application in any organization. The results evince, that the field of industry (with 28%) and also of the constructions (with 16%), concentrate the highest percentage of OHSMS use. In general, there were only few publications including OHSMSs (referred to various occupational fields) available in the scientific literature (during 2006–2017) but on the other hand, there was a gradually increasing scientific interest for these standards (especially during 2009–2012).

Characteristic Analysis of Unsafe Behavior by Coal Miners: Multi-Dimensional Description of the Pan-Scene Data

As a high-risk occupation, coal mining has many accidents, primarily due to the unsafe behavior of coal miners. Based on the research of analysis of unsafe behavior and pan-scenario data of miners, a theoretical framework for the analysis of unsafe behavior characteristics was proposed in this paper. The collected data were divided into realistic scenes and abstract scenes according to different manifestations; the pan-scene data were described from the eight dimensions of time, behavioral trace, location, behavioral property, behavioral individual, degree, unsafe action, and specialty using a quantitative method for the structure conversion; and the rules were discovered through cluster analysis and association analysis. A total of 225 coal mine gas explosion accidents were used for analysis, and the pan-scene data description and structure conversion of unsafe behavior that caused these accidents were realized. In a certain cluster, the distribution rules of dimensions and the interaction between different dimensions of unsafe behavior were explored after analysis. The results show that the proposed eight dimensions can fully explain the basic characteristics and attributes of the unsafe behavior of coal miners. The structure conversion can reduce the workload of managers and effectively improve the safety data processing capabilities, and the result of data analysis can provide data support and a management basis for safety management. A new method and thought for the data analysis of miners' unsafe behavior is provided.

Supply Chain Risk Management

This article describes how as mankind has been ever-evolving, so are their needs, growing in leaps and bounds. Risk management in supply chains have become a prerequisite as it involves a series of steps like procuring, processing, and distribution, where risk has to be managed. Given the advent of technology and transformation of supply chain management from traditional to modern methods, a lot has changed, and of course with ever-evolving technology, the organisations have become adept at handling risks associated with many factors within the organisation and outside the organisation. In this article, the authors will analyse the percentage impact of external and internal supply chain risk factors on various supply chain decisions, and also project various tools available to mitigate Supply chain risks.

Classifying Innovative Activities Using Decision Tree and Gini Index

This paper proposes a framework for classification of innovative activities in production systems based on corresponding calculated risk intensity using decision tree method. A three-step process is developed. The basis of the framework is the innovative activities collected from the literature. These activities are collected from the related literature and are classified by decision tree based on Gini Index. The configured tree is then used to extract and compose rules applying rule mining technique. The resulting rules can be useful sources of information for managers, investors and predictors of innovation domain to take the appropriate approaches for innovation risk management and innovation investment.