Safety-assessment by hybridizing the MCDM/AHP & HAZOP-DMRA techniques through safety’s level colored maps: Implementation in a petrochemical industry

Abstract

A cooperative methodology, by hybridizing the Analytical-Hierarchy-Process (AHP), that is classified in the multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) techniques, with the HAZOP and DMRA processes through safety’s level colored maps (SLCM), is presented, for first time, in the course of this study, with the objective of pinpointing crucial issues and ranking risks and in addition depicting and delineating the occupational safety/health (OSH) state, at the workplace of a petrochemical industry. Initially, the united HAZOP-DMRA process is carried out in order to be recognized and assessed the possible causes of anomalous (defected) conditions (deviations) in the industrial plant. In sight of the results by the HAZOP-DMRA motif, a SLCM chart is created in order to determine facility’s subunits (nodes) that present high risk. Besides, the incorporation to the HAZOP-DMRA-SLCM synergy of a MCDM technique (like the AHP one) can contribute (by its risk-ranking results) to the derivation of alternative SLCM charts, which could be precious means for the industry’s safety-officers to judge the necessity of investing constricted funds in actions (i) of blocking some especial kinds of deviations (or hazards) and (ii) of keeping safe the employees.

Keywords

• Safety assessment
• HAZOP
• DMRA
• Analytical-hierarchy-process
• Safety color map
• Crude oil