Risk acceptance criteria and risk judgment tools applied worldwide within a chemical company

摘要

From 1994 through early 1996,a multinational chemical company developed a standard for evaluating risk of potential accident scenarios.This standard was developed to help users (i.e.engineers,chemists,managers,and other technical staff) determine (1) when sufficient safeguards were in place for an identified scenario and (2) which of these safeguards were critical to achieving (or maintianing) the tolerable risk level.Plant management was held accountable for upholding this standard,and htey were also held accountable for maintaining (to an extremely high level of availability) the critical safety features that were identified.In applying this standard,the users found they needed more guidance on selecting the appropriate methodology for judging risk; some used methodologies that were deemed too rigorous for the questions being answered and others in the company used purely qualitative judgment tools.The users in the company agreed to a set o fthree methods for judging risk and developed a decision tree,followed by training,to help the users (1) choose the proper methodology and (2) apply the methodology chosen consistently.The new guidelines for risk acceptance and risk judgment were taught to technical staff (those who lead hazard reviews and design new processes) worldwide in early 1996.This paper presents the evolution of the risk tolerance and risk judgment approach used by the company.