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In recent years, also in connection with Covid-19 pandemics and enforced restrictions, there has been the formation of large industrial corporations gathering separate companies with similar, sometimes complementary production profiles. This evolving trend has brought usually positive economic effects; however, it has also created some integration problems that include the process safety management. The Texas City BP accident in 2005 and its tremendous human and economic losses underlined the obstacles in defining a well-structured corporation process safety management. The main causes of the above-mentioned accident were connected to an inadequate safety culture at the managerial level. Strong leadership and high standards of corporate governance are required to inspire correct safety behavior in the staff. The so-called soft skills become even more important in the Industry 4.0 arena, where the foundation of the whole system is based on an intelligent use and interpretation of data. The importance of this aspect is confirmed by several post-accidental analyses of past events. Although some research on this topic has been already done, it is worth it to dedicate some effort to identifying specific factors which influence the corporate process safety management quality, and, once identified, to assess them. This paper applies the concept of “lessons learnt” for the identification of organizational and managerial aspects worth consideration in process safety management. Based on accident and literature reviews and expert opinions, the aim is to identify the major contributing factors among leadership and safety culture, risk awareness, knowledge and competence, communication, and information and decision-making processes. To self-assess the level of commitment of the top leaders in process safety management, a checklist approach is proposed, combined with a quantitative, weighted evaluation based on the Relative Efficiency Indicator (REI). Positive value of REI may ensure the effectiveness of process safety management in major hazard industries and their appropriate adaptation to the corporation community. The proposed method, which is validated in an actual case study, underlines the importance of an appropriate education, and of a more careful selection of HSE managers.
Adam S. Markowski; Andrzej Krasławski; Tomaso Vairo; Bruno Fabiano. Process Safety Management Quality in Industrial Corporation for Sustainable Development. Sustainability 2021, 13, 9001 .
AMA StyleAdam S. Markowski, Andrzej Krasławski, Tomaso Vairo, Bruno Fabiano. Process Safety Management Quality in Industrial Corporation for Sustainable Development. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (16):9001.
Chicago/Turabian StyleAdam S. Markowski; Andrzej Krasławski; Tomaso Vairo; Bruno Fabiano. 2021. "Process Safety Management Quality in Industrial Corporation for Sustainable Development." Sustainability 13, no. 16: 9001.
The focus of the present paper is the development of a resilience framework suitable to be applied in assessing the safety of ship LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) bunkering process. Ship propulsion considering LNG as a possible fuel (with dual fuel marine engines installed on board) has favored important discussions about the LNG supply chain and delivery on board to the ship power plant. Within this context, a resilience methodological approach is outlined, including a case study application, to demonstrate its actual effectiveness. With specific reference to the operative steps for LNG bunkering operations in the maritime field, a dynamic model based on Bayesian inference and MCMC simulations can be built, involving the probability of operational perturbations, together with their updates based on the hard (failures) and soft (process variables deviations) evidence emerging during LNG bunkering operations. The approach developed in this work, based on advanced Markov Models and variational fitting algorithms, has proven to be a useful and flexible tool to study, analyze and verify how much the perturbations of systems and subsystems can be absorbed without leading to failure.
Tomaso Vairo; Paola Gualeni; Andrea Reverberi; Bruno Fabiano. Resilience Dynamic Assessment Based on Precursor Events: Application to Ship LNG Bunkering Operations. Sustainability 2021, 13, 6836 .
AMA StyleTomaso Vairo, Paola Gualeni, Andrea Reverberi, Bruno Fabiano. Resilience Dynamic Assessment Based on Precursor Events: Application to Ship LNG Bunkering Operations. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (12):6836.
Chicago/Turabian StyleTomaso Vairo; Paola Gualeni; Andrea Reverberi; Bruno Fabiano. 2021. "Resilience Dynamic Assessment Based on Precursor Events: Application to Ship LNG Bunkering Operations." Sustainability 13, no. 12: 6836.
The paper discusses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Italian chemical and process industries, where Directive 2012/18/EU Seveso III, for the control of Major Accident Hazard (MAH), is enforced. The Safety Management System (SMS) for the control of MAH, which has been mandatory for 20 years in Italian Seveso Establishments, has been highly stressed by the external pressure, related in some way to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fairly, most companies, in particular in oil and gas sectors, have demonstrated an adequate capability to reconcile operation continuity and health requirements. This experience is providing the establishment operators and the regulators with valuable suggestions for the improvements of the SMS-MAH. Within this framework, an innovative organisational resilience model is proposed, aiming at the development of a higher capability to face future new crisis. The current SMS-MAH already includes some basic pillars to enhance resilience, which were valuable during the pandemic crisis, but a full and rationale development is still needed. Starting from the first pandemic phase experience, this paper presents a novel tool to assess the degree of “resilience” of a SMS-MAH. It is based on a questionnaire, featuring 25 questions grouped into eight items, according to the typical SMS-MAH structure. A two level AHP model has been developed in order to define the weights to be assigned to each point. The AHP panel included industrial practitioners, regulators, authorities and researchers. The results are based on the COVID-19 experience and consequently the developed model is tailored to face health emergencies, but the approach may be easily transferred to other external crises.
Paolo Bragatto; Tomaso Vairo; Maria Francesca Milazzo; Bruno Fabiano. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the safety management in Italian Seveso industries. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 2021, 70, 104393 .
AMA StylePaolo Bragatto, Tomaso Vairo, Maria Francesca Milazzo, Bruno Fabiano. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the safety management in Italian Seveso industries. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries. 2021; 70 ():104393.
Chicago/Turabian StylePaolo Bragatto; Tomaso Vairo; Maria Francesca Milazzo; Bruno Fabiano. 2021. "The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the safety management in Italian Seveso industries." Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries 70, no. : 104393.
The safety aspects of pipelines conveying hazardous materials are included neither under the umbrella of Seveso Directives aiming at preventing major accidents at industrial facilities, nor in other EU legislations, such as the Pressure Equipment Directive (PED). Starting from evidence that in the last decades the international natural gas market has been growing at a very high rate and continues to exhibit an increasing trend, in this paper we focus on consequences deriving from accidents on high pressure buried Natural Gas Pipelines (NGP) and related probabilities of the various outcomes. A survey on historical accidents occurred on NG pipelines in the USA, Canada and EU allowed the attainment of significant statistics concerning the main factors responsible for the accident evolution, namely failure mode, immediate and root cause, evolving scenario, degree of confinement produced by the surroundings and ignition timing. In this paper, we focus on a refined Event Tree framework, to overcome the limitations of the amply applied over-conservative IP UKOOA approach. In order to evidence the capability of the approach, the use of refined PET is exemplified by means of a real case-study of a high pressure buried NG pipeline, contrasting the actual results with those obtained by conventional methods, in terms of evolving scenario probability and damage. Conclusions are drawn about the effective application of the framework within risk assessment and the uncertainties and sensitivities in the pipeline accident modelling.
Tomaso Vairo; Marco Pontiggia; Bruno Fabiano. Critical aspects of natural gas pipelines risk assessments. A case-study application on buried layout. Process Safety and Environmental Protection 2020, 149, 258 -268.
AMA StyleTomaso Vairo, Marco Pontiggia, Bruno Fabiano. Critical aspects of natural gas pipelines risk assessments. A case-study application on buried layout. Process Safety and Environmental Protection. 2020; 149 ():258-268.
Chicago/Turabian StyleTomaso Vairo; Marco Pontiggia; Bruno Fabiano. 2020. "Critical aspects of natural gas pipelines risk assessments. A case-study application on buried layout." Process Safety and Environmental Protection 149, no. : 258-268.
Even if safety in the shipping industry improved significantly over the last decades, by novel design and construction techniques, driven by technological, cultural and regulation improvements, recent passenger ship accidents emphasized that significant safety challenges still remain. The modern trend towards large cruise ships can pose a serious threat in terms of both people evacuation/rescue and potential impact on sensible environmental targets. This paper firstly presents a critical analysis of three passenger ship accidents, identifying main similarities with the process sector and relevant learning points. Secondly, the study approaches risk evaluation, acceptance criteria and sea use planning in connection with cruise activity, referring to the worldwide known sensible area of Portofino (Italy). By utilizing numerical methods, the study develops a consequence-based framework incorporating the effects, the hazardous distance and the reaction time scale, related to fuel spill and fire scenarios with smoke spreading. The results evidence that the approach can be a powerful tool to design optimal ship route and temporary docking points for cruise tourism, balancing economic issues and mitigating physical impact to sensitive biological communities. Additionally, it can provide a technical basis for setting-up emergency planning, with appropriate response equipment and thus minimizing coastal impact from a spill.
Tomaso Vairo; Mauro Quagliati; Tania Del Giudice; Antonio Barbucci; Bruno Fabiano. From land- to water-use-planning: A consequence based case-study related to cruise ship risk. Safety Science 2017, 97, 120 -133.
AMA StyleTomaso Vairo, Mauro Quagliati, Tania Del Giudice, Antonio Barbucci, Bruno Fabiano. From land- to water-use-planning: A consequence based case-study related to cruise ship risk. Safety Science. 2017; 97 ():120-133.
Chicago/Turabian StyleTomaso Vairo; Mauro Quagliati; Tania Del Giudice; Antonio Barbucci; Bruno Fabiano. 2017. "From land- to water-use-planning: A consequence based case-study related to cruise ship risk." Safety Science 97, no. : 120-133.