H. Yoon et al., Quantitative business decision-making for the investment of preventing safety accidents in chemical plants, COMPUT CH E, 24(2-7), 2000, pp. 1037-1041
This paper proposes a new quantitative method of supporting business decisi
on-making while investing safety related facility and service. This method
suggests the priority of investment relevant to safety within limited budge
t, so most possible hazards can be removed or the company may not invest mo
ney for the acceptable hazards depending on the budget. The typical theory
that risk is equivalent to the multiplication of frequency and severity, gi
ven by CCPS (Center for Chemical Process Safety) in American Institute of C
hemical Engineers (AIChE), is modified to consider more detailed classifica
tions. The criteria of decision are determined by the manager's survey. Com
putation of R matrix results the priority of investment and the investment
is finally chosen by the decision criteria. This method is proved to be eff
ective in reducing safety accidents by proper management through the analys
is of real accident data of a Korean petrochemical company for using Yonsei
Safety Information Management System (ySIMS). We collected 5500 accident d
ata for one and a half year by using the 'detailed classification sheets' i
ncluding more than 60 accident cause types. As a result of applying this sy
stem to the company, the number of accidents of class A and B was significa
ntly reduced in 6 months after the systematically chosen investment by 70%
and 62% that was from 33 to 10 and from 122 to 47, respectively. The aim of
this study is to manage safety accidents properly and to prevent major acc
idents from petrochemical industry. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All righ
ts reserved.