Limitations of current risk assessment methods to foresee emerging risks: Towards a new methodology?

Abstract

Coze. Limitations of current risk assessment methods to foresee emerging risks : Towards a new methodology ?. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, Elsevier, 2016Elsevier, , 43, pp.730-735. 10.1016Elsevier, /j.jlp.2016 M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D AbstractThe objective of this work-in-progress is to investigate the potentialities but also the limitations of traditional risks analysis tools especially in the context of emerging technologies and develop a method facilitating the early detection of scenarios of accidents. This is certainly a challenge particularly for new industrial fields since, in this case, very little or no lesson from past accidents is available. It is believed that such situations cannot be conveniently treated using traditional risk assessment methods (HAZOP, FMEA,...) and typical examples are given. The reason is that those methods rely heavily on past accidents and are therefore "trapped" in them so that they are largely "inductive". In terms of foreseeing the future, the shortcomings of inductive methods are recalled. The possibility to imagine the future with very little clues is then discussed on the ground of theoretical consideration and a way to do so is proposed (abduction, serendipity). Then on the basis of the observation of how the experts work and how discoveries are made, a potential new methodology is outlined. Keywords: Decision engineering, Hazards identification, Management and planning, SafetyHighlights :• illustrated examples of various situations where standard risk analysis failed ;• illustrated examples of the successful identification of a unknown risk within the context of a formatted risk analysis exercise; • investigation of the way discoveries are made and of the potential links with the risk analysis exercise.

A fuzzy Bayesian network approach for risk analysis in process industries

“…The risk assessment techniques deployed for identifying and controlling the risks in hazardous industries might appear satisfactory to their users; however, in a real life scenario, there have been many cases of disastrous accidents due to the failure of such preventive measure, such as deepwater horizon explosion and oil spill in 2010, Fukushima disaster in 2011, storage tank explosion at loading port in Tianjin in 2015, the explosion of a natural gas (NG) factory in Belgium in 2004, and conflagration caused by NG leakage in Paraguay in 2004, etc. (Escande et al, 2016;Han and Weng, 2011;Khakzad, 2015;Taveau, 2010). The approaches used for hazard analysis in process industries include, but are not limited to, Hazard and Operability Analysis (HAZOP) (Dunjó et al, 2010), Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) (Vesely et al, 2002), and Bow-tie diagrams (De Dianous and Fiévez, 2006).…”

Testing the validity of the Networked Hazard Analysis and Risk Management System (Net‐HARMS)

“…There are increasing calls for a systems approach to risk assessment (Dallat et al, 2017b; Hulme, McLean, et al, 2021; Hulme, Stanton, et al, 2021; Leveson, 2011; Salmon et al, 2017), however, with several exceptions (e.g., Networked Hazard Analysis and Risk Management System, [Net‐HARMS], Dallat et al, 2017a; System‐Theoretic Process Analysis [STPA], Leveson, 2011; Event Analysis of Systemic Teamwork [EAST]; Stanton et al, 2013), these calls have yet to make a significant impact in terms of the availability of such methods (Dallat et al, 2017b; Eidesen et al, 2009; Escande et al, 2016; Leveson, 2011; Pasquini et al, 2011; Stanton & Harvey, 2017). The majority of current risk assessment methods applied across safety‐critical domains are focused on individual performance (e.g., pilot, control room operator, driver), are component based, and largely view accidents as linear or chain‐of‐event in their trajectory (Dallat et al, 2017b).…”