Risk-based optimization of operational procedures

The maturity of management systems allows drawing the conclusion that in modern industries the activities are mostly written, consolidated and verified within operational procedures. This also applies for the activities that are carried out infrequently, e.g., rare maintenance or testing activities, that being uncommon, are less known and thus characterized by an higher potential risk. In order to optimize the procedure, both from the productivity and from the safety (occupational and process) point of view, a risk assessment of the procedure has to be performed, highlighting which of the tasks within the procedure mainly contributes to the risk of the working activity. Usually the analysis of the procedures is carried on through a task analysis (as in Builes et al., 2014). In this paper the task analysis is used as a starting point for a quantitative risk assessment carried on through an integrated decision analysis (as in Leva et al., 2015). Through the integrated decision analysis, the logical-probabilistic model of the procedure is elaborated jointly with a consequences estimation obtaining a risk assessment for all the sequences of tasks from work procedure under analysis. The comparative risk analysis considered two (original and optimized) procedure alternatives. The risk assessment considered both possible equipment failures and the potential personnel errors in executing, mainly manual, testing procedure. In this paper, an application of the integrated decision analysis, through the SPACCO software tool, is shown for a cold water pressure test of the LPG storage tank in industrial installation. The risk has been assessed in terms of delays in the operations and economical impact in case of occupational and/or process accidents. Observing the variation of the risk distribution the procedure optimization has been performed and the risk reduction calculated.