Prioritization, operational risk

The application of an effective risk assessment has been conducted in rockfall hazardous areas induced by earthquake, such as the Du-Wen Highway which is located in the area affected by the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. It tries to answer the question how safe is the highway . It provides highway users and managers with insights into the estimation of the risks to lives, infrastructure damage and operational risk due to the rockfall events. It also can help prioritize the risk sites for defensive measures and risk-management plans. 

Superior performers understand risks and have risk assessment and management provisions within their operations risk management systems. They are aware that not all risks are equal and that prioritization is necessary in the decision making for expenditure of funds. 

Using these probability and severity categories, a risk analysis matrix can be developed for any type of event and used to identify imacceptable risks for the operation. It can also be used to prioritize which risks wiU be addressed—where action is taken to eliminate or reduce them—and in which order. An example risk-analysis matrix is given in Figure 18.1, with high priority cells identified. The highest priority cells are located in the upper left part of the matrix, while the lowest priority cells are in the lower right corner. The approach could be used to compare the impact of many different events, such as roof faU accidents, rock burst events, and mine fires. It can also be used to combine both quantitative and quahtative risks. 

M. L. Casada, J. Q. Kiikman, and H. M. Paula, Facility Risk Review as an Approach to Prioritizing Loss Prevention Efforts, Plant/Operations Progress, October 1990. 

A number of risk importance measures have been defined for the interpretation of PSAs and for use in prioritization of operational and safety improvements. Some of these measures are similar to sensitivity defined as the total derivative (equation 2.8-1). 

Process Hazard Analysis— An organized effort to identify and evaluate hazards associated with chemical processes and operations to enable their control. This review normally involves the use of qualitative techniques to identify and assess the significance of hazards. Conclusions and appropriate recommendations are developed. Occasionally, quantitative methods are used to help prioritize risk reduction measures. 

Assessment of a company s waste minimization needs includes examining the content of and volume of hazardous waste streams it generates, and the processes or operations that generate them. The object of this step is to prioritize the needs of the company, based on environmental risk, liability, and economic criteria. 

To 5 IB MINIMAL RISK - Record individual dose readings - Continue monitoring - Initiate red survey - Establish dose control measures as part of operations - Prioritize tasks... 

While individual risk may appear manageable based on a review of hazards, mode of transportation, and typical operations, unexpected outcomes could occm if the Ml transportation netwoik is not completely understood. Therefore, as part of any prioritization activities, the complexity of the transportation system should be reviewed to help ensure all potential issues are included. These complexities may include ... 

Since this is a high-level corporate review at this point, the prioritization activity is limited to the chemicals, their physical properties, and the potential consequences and impact that could result from an accidental release while in transport to or from an XYZ Chemical plant. During the risk analyses presented in the continuing example in Chapters 4 and 5 (which focus on a specific facility s transportation activities), the other operational factors above are reviewed in greater detail. The prioritization process at this point, therefore, will be hazard- and consequence-based with additional detail on conseqnence, likelihood, and risk addressed for those chemicals and modes of transportation identified for escalation. Additionally, the review is limited to safety, since the focns of Chapter 6 is exclusively on security. In practice, safety and secnrity can be completed together, but have been separated in this book and example for clarity. 

XYZ Chemical has similar operations consisting primarily of pesticide and herbicide manufacturing operations in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America. Since the operations are similar, the prioritization process (illustrated in Table 3.4) consists of cataloging all chemicals in transit (in and out of their facilities), modes of transport, qnantities, and nnmber of annual shipments. Specifically, the prioritization process is a combination of the hazards- and consequence-based prioritization processes illnstrated in Figure 3.4. If this process were expanded to a likelihood- or risk-based process, then additional factors (e.g., the number of shipment, length of shipment) may have been included in the prioritization. With this data collected, the hazards of each chemical and the potential impacts are docnmented based on the chemical physical properties and quantities in transit. With all of the information collected, the following qualitative ranking is nsed to prioritize issnes for escalation and identification of countries and operations that will need to condnct more detailed risk analyses ... 

In Chapter 3, XYZ Chemical conducted a corporate-level identification and prioritization of all worldwide hazardous material transportation activities. Based on this hazard-based prioritization activity, the chemicals listed in Table 4.3 were identified as potentially higher risk and escalated for further facilily/operational-level reviews. Facility review means the inbound and outbound hazardous material transportation activities for each XYZ Chemical plant moving these chemicals. 

As discnssed in Chapter 3, the results of the initial company-level prioritization were based solely on the chemical hazards and identified facihties whose transportation operations would require a facihty/operational level review. The focus of this example is on the security of the hazardous materials in and out of a single XYZ Chemical facihty, and is the same Asian plant that was evaluated for safety issues in Chapters 4 and 5. In addition to the corporate directive to evaluate transportation safety risk at this facihty, the site security manager was informed of the need to complete a security risk analysis of the hazardous materials in transit. To inihate the security review, the security manager and health and safety manager met to review the findings of the safety analysis. In addition to focusing on chemicals and hazards from the initial safety prioritizahon, the security prioritization process also considers ... 

Prioritization and Identification (Chapter 3) Corporate / Management Level Hazards of the worldwide transportation operations are not clearly understood Risk management priorities have not been identified Corporate-level prioritization of all transportation hazards Identification of low-risk materials that can be limited to a primary management system review Identification chemicals, modes of transportation, and specific facility operations escalated for more detailed risk analysis... 

Backlog of preventive and corrective maintenance and risk perception among stakeholders involved in operations - related to prioritized maintenance or changes not performed at due date. 

This paper presents the overall quantified risk, the specific causes and their prioritization for four different cases a) contact with moving parts of a machine during operation b) contact with moving parts of a... 

---