On the quantification of the effects of organizational and management factors in chemical installations

The quantitative effects of organizational and management factors in chemical installations are assessed through a linking of the results of a safety management audit with the basic events of a quantified risk assessment (QRA). A safety management audit establishes the relative position of the organizational and management aspects of a particular chemical installation with respect to an ideal management scheme, and for a number of failure causes and failure prevention combinations. A quantitative risk analysis including detailed system analysis offers a plant-specific decomposition of the plant-damage-state frequencies into events like hardware failures, maintenance-related failures, operation-related failures and so on. The basic events incorporated in the QRA are then categorized into classes similar to those explored by the management audit and are quantitatively linked to the audit results. Knowledge of these quantitative links would allow for the reflection of the deficiencies or strengths that might exist in the safety management system on the quantitative risk indices. A case study of an ammonia storage facility that has been audited demonstrates that the sensitivity of the risk indices to the value of the quantitative links is extremely high and that hence great care should be exercised in assessing these links. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.