scholarly journals A Methodology for Harmonizing Safety and Health Scales in Occupational Risk Assessment

Author(s):  
Zuzhen Ji ◽  
Dirk Pons ◽  
John Pearse

Successful implementation of Health and Safety (H&S) systems requires an effective mechanism to assess risk. Existing methods focus primarily on measuring the safety aspect; the risk of an accident is determined based on the product of severity of consequence and likelihood of the incident arising. The health component, i.e., chronic harm, is more difficult to assess. Partially, this is due to both consequences and the likelihood of health issues, which may be indeterminate. There is a need to develop a quantitative risk measurement for H&S risk management and with better representation for chronic health issues. The present paper has approached this from a different direction, by adopting a public health perspective of quality of life. We have then changed the risk assessment process to accommodate this. This was then applied to a case study. The case study showed that merely including the chronic harm scales appeared to be sufficient to elicit a more detailed consideration of hazards for chronic harm. This suggests that people are not insensitive to chronic harm hazards, but benefit from having a framework in which to communicate them. A method has been devised to harmonize safety and harm risk assessments. The result was a comprehensive risk assessment method with consideration of safety accidents and chronic health issues. This has the potential to benefit industry by making chronic harm more visible and hence more preventable.

Safety ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk J. Pons

Need—National legislative health and safety (H&S) frameworks impose requirements but grant self-management to organisations. Consequently variability arises in management systems, and some organisations struggle to achieve successful implementation. The risk assessment process is key to the H&S management system, and could benefit from greater consistency and better external alignment with the legislative framework of the jurisdiction. Approach—The harm categories in the New Zealand (NZ) Act were adapted into a consequence scale. A non-linear scale was developed for the consequence axis to represent the disproportional nature of catastrophic harm outcomes compared to minor injuries. A hazard assessment process was devised based on systems engineering methods. Organisational decision-criteria were derived from the communications requirement in the Act, and these thresholds linked to expected treatments. Originality—A method is providing for aligning risk assessments with a national legislative framework, and integrating the technical aspects of risk assessment with the management processes. The approach also more explicitly includes recovery actions in contrast to existing methods where prevention dominates. Regarding the management aspects, it shows how thresholds may be defined relative to the legislation, to give clear expectations regarding treatment and internal communication, thereby assisting executives (‘officers’ in terms of the NZ Act) meet their duties.


2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 627-640 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shi Xianwu ◽  
Qiu Jufei ◽  
Chen Bingrui ◽  
Zhang Xiaojie ◽  
Guo Haoshuang ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 114 (9) ◽  
pp. 1499-1518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remigiusz Romuald Iwańkowicz ◽  
Wlodzimierz Rosochacki

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a risk assessment method for production processes of large-size steel ship hulls. Design/methodology/approach – This study uses a quantitative-probabilistic approach with involvement of clustering technique in order to analyse the database of accidents and predict the process risk. The case-based reasoning is used in here. A set of technological hazard classes as a basis for analysing the similarities between the production processes is proposed. The method has been explained using a case study on large-size shipyard. Findings – Statistical and clustering approach ensures effective risk managing in shipbuilding process designing. Results show that by selection of adequate number of clusters in the database, the quality of predictions can be controlled. Research limitations/implications – The suggested k-means method using the Euclidean distance measure is initial approach. Testing the other distance measures and consideration of fuzzy clustering method is desirable in the future. The analysis in the case study is simplified. The use of the method according to prediction of risk related to loss of health or life among people exposed to the hazards is presented. Practical implications – The risk index allows to compare the processes in terms of security, as well as provide significant information at the technology design stage of production task. Originality/value – There are no studies on quantitative methods developed specifically for managing risks in shipbuilding processes. Proposed list of technological hazard classes allows to utilize database of past processes accidents in risk prediction. The clustering method of analysing the database is agile thanks to the number of clusters parameter. The case study basing on actual data from the real shipyard constitutes additional value of the paper.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Shuang Wang ◽  
Lei Ding ◽  
He Sui ◽  
Zhaojun Gu

Cybersecurity risk assessment is an important means of effective response to network attacks on industrial control systems. However, cybersecurity risk assessment process is susceptible to subjective and objective effects. To solve this problem, this paper introduced cybersecurity risk assessment method based on fuzzy theory of Attack-Defense Tree model and probability cybersecurity risk assessment technology, and applied it to airport automatic fuel supply control system. Firstly, an Attack-Defense Tree model was established based on the potential cybersecurity threat of the system and deployed security equipment. Secondly, the interval probability of the attack path was calculated using the triangular fuzzy quantification of the interval probabilities of the attack leaf nodes and defensive leaf nodes. Next, the interval probability of the final path was defuzzified. Finally, the occurrence probability of each final attack path was obtained and a reference for the deployment of security equipment was provided. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: (1) considering the distribution of equipment in industrial control system, a new cybersecurity risk evaluation model of industrial control system is proposed. (2) The experimental results of this article are compared with other assessment technologies, and the trend is similar to that of other evaluation methods, which proves that the method was introduced in this paper is scientific. However, this method reduces the subjective impact of experts on cybersecurity risk assessment, and the assessment results are more objective and reasonable. (3) Applying this model to the airport oil supply automatic control system can comprehensively evaluate risk, solve the practical problems faced by the airport, and also provide an important basis for the cybersecurity protection scheme of the energy industry.


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