RISK ASSESSMENT IN INDUSTRIAL PLANTS THROUGH THE ANALYTIC HIERARCHY PROCESS

BACKROUND The new standard UNI EN ISO 14121-1:2007 standard (Safety of machinery Risk assessment Part 1: Principles) suggests quantifying the risk connected to a particular danger on the basis of several factors: the seriousness of the possible consequences, the probability of the occurrence of the harmful event and the possibility of avoiding or limiting the damage, and, since the latter is connected to the speed with which the risk event occurs, the awareness of the risk itself and the possibility of human intervention. These indications also correspond to the general assessment of risks in the Work Safety Consolidated Act (Leg. Decree no. 81 of 9 April 2008). OBJECTIVES This study proposes to define two approaches for the quantification of risks, both based on the criteria established by current regulations, in compliance with the previous standard UNI EN 1050:1998 (Safety of machinery Principles for risk assessment), and on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology. METHODS The procedures developed should be considered complementary to the more traditional practice of calculating the risk level (as the probability of the harmful event multiplied by the magnitude of the consequences), in comparison to which these procedures allow the consideration of more parameters. The practical application of the procedures developed is shown a long with the case study concerning the safety of operations to set up a bottle washer. RESULTS The results obtained are compared with those from the calculation of the risk level in order to verify its correctness. Compared to the traditional calculation of risk level, which is the result of the multiplication of the probability of the harmful event by the magnitude of the consequences, the methodologies proposed have two main advantages. First, both procedures allow the assessment of more parameters, thus making the risk assessment procedure more comprehensive. Secondly, the applied example shows that the results provided by both methodologies provide a greater numerical values of than those calculated with the traditional risk level, and are thus more conservative in the assessment of risks. BOW PO/base indexing: CIS: Hazard evaluation [CIS: Qra]; Plant safety supervision [CIS: Vis]; Bottle washing [CIS: Hvab]; Electronic equipment [CIS: Xes]; Machinery [CIS: Hm] EUOSHA OSH: Risk assessment [OSH: 19641D]; Hazards in plant, machinery and work equipment [OSH: 41681B]; Workshops [OSH: 59801C] ATECO: Manufacture of machinery and equipment n.e.c. [ATECO: 29]