Assessment of operation safety risk for South-to-North Water Diversion Project: a fuzzy VIKOR-FMEA approach

Abstract

The South-to-North Water Diversion Project (SNWDP) is a cross-basin large-scale water infrastructure, whose operational management faces many complex risks. This study constructs an operational safety risk analysis model based on fuzzy VIKOR-FMEA. First, the expert team used linguistic variables to evaluate the severity of each failure mode (S), frequency of occurrence (O), and difficulty of detection (D) in the failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). Then, the fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the maximal deviation approach were integrated to carry out risk factor weights. The risk factor weight analysis matrix integrates the subjective and objective weights to obtain the comprehensive weights of the risk factors. Secondly, VIKOR is introduced to improve the traditional FMEA model and is used to calculate the risk priority number. The case study shows that untimely flood protection, irregular maintenance, and untimely emergency response are in the top order. Finally, it is compared with the traditional FMEA method, which verifies the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method, and provides a reference algorithm for risk analysis of operation management for the water diversion project. HIGHLIGHTS FMEA is employed to assess the operational risks of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project.; The triangular fuzzy number is used to evaluate the severity (S), frequency of occurrence (O), and difficulty of detection (D) of each failure mode.; VIKOR is introduced to improve the traditional FMEA model.; Untimely flood control and irregular maintenance are the greatest risks.;

Keywords

• failure mode and effects analysis (fmea)
• maximal deviation approach
• risk ranking
• south-to-north water diversion project
• vikor