An algorithm for the implementation of safety improvement programs

In production system workplace environments, the achievement of safety obje ctives depends essentially on the risk assessment process and on the adequa cy of measures to eliminate or reduce risk. The main goal of the planning p hase is to define in advance the effective management of resources (financi al, human and technical) involved in the completion of the overall safety i mprovement program. Indeed, whereas the results of the risk assessment proc ess depend only on the correct evaluation of the work system with respect t o human safety, the planning phase of safety improvement program is subject to economic, technical and organisational constraints and has to be integr ated with other company objectives. Within this context, the plan definitio n should include additional objectives other than risk reduction, such as t he clustering of measures with homogenous or compatible characteristics and the minimisation of production system disturbance (inefficiency) over the program time span. However, no safety improvement program can really be imp lemented if operational constraints (i.e. finite availability of resources, incompatibility in the execution of measures and limited acceptance of ine fficiency) are overlooked. The present paper proposes a quantitative view o f these objectives and constraints in order to develop an algorithm for the scheduling of measures within a safety improvement program. By means of th e evaluation of a priority index, this algorithm provides a plan with the h igher rate of risk reduction possible that maximises the objectives in func tion of their relative importance, obeying the imposed constraints. The def inition of the safety improvement program for a textile factory shows how t he algorithm can produce a plan with higher rate of risk reduction in compa rison with plans based only on risk priority. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd . All rights reserved.