Lessons learned from past accidents - The integration of human and organizational factors with the technical aspect

It is of prime importance to ensure the safety of chemical process plants due to volatile nature of the industry and drastic consequences of the accidents. A number of parameters can affect the safety of the process plants. One of the main parameters that has the influence on the safety of operations is the Human and Organizational Factors (HOF) as suggested by numbers of existing studies. Therefore, in order to enhance the safety of operations it is required to improve the HOF. These factors can be improved by an integrated approach as proposed in this work, instead looking at these factors in an isolation. A number of existing risk assessment approaches have been analysed in this work and their compliance requirements to the relevant International Standards with respect to the HOF. A new quantitative methodology “Method for Error Deduction and Incident Analysis (MEDIA)” has been developed in this work. During the development of this methodology, practicality; consistency; integration with other risk assessment techniques and efficient use of information were explicitly ensured. The MEDIA can help to integrate the HOF around the technical aspect and can prioritize the follow up actions based on risk. The quantification of this methodology is based on results of the accident analysis, that has been carried out in this work. The accidents of 25 years (1988-2012) in the Seveso establishments and that were reported to the European Commission’s Major Accident Reporting System (eMARS) have been studied. The results from the accident analysis have further used in order to learn lessons and to propose future recommendations. These recommendations are mainly aimed at further integration of the HOF and to improve the overall safety of chemical process plants. More specifically, these recommendations are addressed to the use of organizational checklist during the Hazard Identification (HAZID) study; improvement of existing eMARS reporting structure and the legal obligation towards the EU Member States to report their accidents to the European Commission.