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At the OCI Nitrogen ammonia plant, located at the Chemelot site in Geleen, The Netherlands, a project has been initiated to monitor major accident processes at the site. This contribution answers the question whether indicators can be derived from the barrier system status to provide information about the development and likelihood of the major accident processes in the ammonia production process. The accident processes are visualized as scenarios in bowties. This research focuses on the status of the preventive barriers on the so called 'left-hand side' of the bowtie, before a hazard becomes uncontrollable. Both the quality - expressed in reliability/availability and effectiveness - and the activation of the barrier system give an indication of the development of the accident scenarios and the likelihood of the central event. This likelihood is calculated as a loss of risk reduction compared to the original design. The calculation gives in an indicator called "preventive barrier indicator", which should initiate further action. Based on an example, it is demonstrated which actions should be taken and their urgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experience gathered from normal industrial operations allows us to associate its degrading conditions with the potential for an accident. Such association is the basis for the definition of the system risk and appropriate safety measures. If a skilled operator observes further degrading conditions, his/her mind quickly learns from this new experience, derives an updated risk level, and tunes the safety measures. Similarly, safety management techniques aim to construct a risk model while learning from past and new observations with the purpose to warn of an imminent accident. However, the model can be tested only in hindsight, after the occurrence (or the missed occurrence) of an accident. How can we generalise and model the risk analysis learning process? How can we optimise its configuration towards new observations? This study discusses these issues of meta-learning for safety management by considering the case study of a drive-off scenario involving an oil and gas drilling rig, for which a risk assessment approach based on machine learning is developed. The results indicate the way forward for a generalisation of risk analysis learning processes and their optimisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk analysis in process systems is very important to design effective strategies for preventing and mitigating potential major accidents. Although conventional techniques as Bow-tie (BT) have widely been used in risk assessment of process systems, they fall short in effectively modelling epistemic uncertainty which is prevailing in risk assessment of process systems. The present study is aimed at alleviating this shortcoming by incorporating fuzzy set theory into BT, developing a so-called fuzzy extended Bow tie (FEBT) model. FEBT, compared with previous fuzzy BT methods, uses the intuitionistic fuzzy numbers and thus provides a more accurate cause - consequence model of accident scenarios. A natural gas transmission network is used to demonstrate the application of FEBT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Industrial safety performance has, for a long time, been the domain of health and safety specialists, measuring injury and absenteeism rates to discover patterns and trying to prevent accidents from happening. The drawback of this approach is that safety is reactive to accidents, mostly caused by operations. As a result, safety (performance) has become the reverse side of operations (performance) and is often seen as a hinderance in making the best possible profit for organisations. However, now already for a period of time, industries have become aware of the possible benefits of a more proactive approach towards safety. Therefore, increasingly more organisations are looking for more proactive methods in measuring and achieving safety performance. As a result, in recent years, important efforts have been undertaken to improve the understanding of safety culture and safety climate and how to measure these concepts in organisations, for instance in the process industry and chemical plants. Likewise, substantial efforts have been made to determine and develop a wide range of leading and lagging safety indicators that can reflect and predict safety performance. While developing leading indicators and making culture measurements are helpful, they both measure safety conditions indirectly. Because, an organisational culture or climate can be regarded as a specific indicator of a possible future performance, in the same way leading safety indicators aim to predict the future. Yet, little tools are currently available for the instant measuring of actual safety conditions and performance in organisations, providing information that allows for benchmarking between different sectors and industries. Nevertheless, when safety and its opposite "unsafety" are carefully defined, it becomes imaginable to develop tools that instantly measure the safety performances and actual safety situations in organisations so that they can be used for benchmarking regardless of sector or industry. In this article we will expound this way of thinking, based on an original paradigm about safety, unsafety and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monitoring progress of accident scenarios, and effectiveness of control measures is a main goal of safety indicators. From an overview of scientific literature one may conclude that indicators do not logically relate to current safety theories and models, their relation with accident processes is far from perfect, and a 'silver bullet' has not been identified yet. Professional literature shows another picture, and divides indicators in leading and lagging. This distinction seems convincing. Not only companies, but also regulations adopted this division. Currently many indicators used in industry generate a number, while the relation with accident processes is questionable at least. In addition, it can be expected that regulators of major hazard companies will ask to identify and implement both lagging and leading indicators, and anchor these indicators in a safety management system. The subject 'safety indicators' will remain in the spotlight in the time to come. This presentation will focus on a review of scientific and professional literature. This article is written in 'praesens historicum', and based upon recent articles (Oostendorp et al., 2016, Swuste et al., 2010, 2014, 2016 a,b, 2018). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past accident surveys reveal that loading and unloading operations (LUOs) are responsible for 11% of firerelated domino accidents. This study investigates the domino accidents during LUOs in the last two decades and identifies the main causes and features of these domino effects. An index-based approach is proposed to assess these domino effects, measuring the periodic escalation capability of installations. The proposed escalation capability index takes into account the special features being present in these accidents, including the spread of vapor cloud due to delayed ignition, multiple fires caused by vapor cloud explosion (VCE), the quantity variation of hazardous substances, and the change of primary event risk due to operations. From a risk management view, an emergency strategy is proposed to tackle the risk caused by LUOs. Therefore, this methodology can identify the most critical areas with regard to the starting or escalating of domino events during LUOs and support the decision-making of alert levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to control occupational accidents, it is crucial to have a clear view on the potential accident scenarios that are present in a company. The bow-tie method is a way to capture and visualise these accident processes in an integrative way. Included in the bow-tie are safety barriers (both technical as organisational and human) and management delivery systems that can intervene in these accident processes. Once bowties are composed, they are an excellent point of departure to assign indicators to the safety barriers and management delivery systems in order to control (i.e. prevent or mitigate) the accident scenarios. Two types of indicators can be distinguished. Firstly, there are general indicators that are linked to management delivery systems interrupting multiple accident scenarios, and which can yield a higher safety gain (as they intervene in multiple accident scenarios). Secondly, there are scenario-specific indicators targeting one specific accident scenario, and which can be valuable as they target a specific safety problem in the company. Some crucial aspects have to be taken into account when using indicators, such as sequentiality in follow-up and prioritization of indicators, and the focus on quality rather than quantity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If flammable gas is mixed with air, and the mixture is ignited, it is possible to form a vapor cloud explosion (VCE) which may be very destructive, and easy to trigger a domino effect of accidents because of its large extent of impact. A VCE accident may induce secondary VCE accidents, then tertiary VCE accidents, and so on. This is called the cascading effect of VCE accidents, which requires an understanding of probabilities and propagation patterns to prevent and mitigate the potential damages. In this work, a methodology based on Petri-net is proposed to model the cascading effect of VCE accidents and perform probability analysis, taking the mutual influence between the accidents into account. The deficiency in probability analysis of VCE accidents is discussed. According to the limits of states and their changes which reflect characteristics of VCE propagation, a Petri-net approach is provided for modeling and analysis of VCE cascading effect, and the modeling approach and analysis process of VCE cascading effect are presented. The application and efficacy of the methodology are demonstrated via an example of VCE accidents occurring in a gasoline tank storage area. The results show that the developed methodology can effectively reveal the propagation patterns of VCEs cascading and calculate the respective probabilities of VCE accidents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Security threats are becoming an increasing concern for chemical sites and related infrastructures where relevant quantities of hazardous materials are processed, stored or transported. In the present study, security related events that affected chemical and process sites, and related infrastructures, were investigated. The aim of the study is to frame a clear picture of the threats affecting the chemical and process industry, and to issue lessons learnt from past events. A database of 300 security-related accidents was developed and populated, starting from European and American sources. Threat categories that caused such events were identified and analyzed. The attack modes were investigated. Important differences were found with respect to geographical areas and industrial sectors affected. The use of explosives (both military and improvised explosive devices) is by far the more frequent attack mode, although armed attacks and arson are also frequent events and may result in an in-depth penetration of the attackers. In recent years, cyber-attacks are also posing important threats. Lessons learnt call for the implementation of a specific security management system in the chemical and process industry, aiming at the physical and cyber protection of industrial sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To support organisations in addressing their safety culture, practical tools have been developed worldwide. Based on such practical tools, it is possible to measure where an organisation is situated regarding its safety culture in order to identify priority areas, formulate appropriate improvement strategies and determine changes over time. In this paper, it is examined which practical tools to measure and improve safety culture are provided on the Belgian market. In total, 15 Belgian tools were identified, of which 8 agreed to cooperate. Amongst the included tools, there is a lot of variation regarding the methods to diagnose the safety culture and the overall procedure to improve the safety culture. The importance to adapt the tool to the specific needs and context of organisations is acknowledged in most of the tools, as well as the importance to use a multi-method approach to measure the safety culture. Also, it is recognised that all hierarchic levels should participate during the process of diagnosing the safety culture. A point of attention is this overall participation during the validation of the results of the diagnosis, and the priority setting of the recommendations, which is mainly done by the higher management. The development of the Belgian tools is based on experience with a focus on direct practical application, which leads to the fact that none of the tools are validated through scientific evidence. Another point of attention is that organisations pay too little attention at the continuity of safety culture research. And finally, the question can be raised if the safety culture tools actually address the concept ‘safety culture’, or if they address only a subset of the concept. When safety culture is addressed, a comprehensive approach should be used, where technological, organisational, human and external aspects are taken into account as interacting and interrelating elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk matrices and risk diagrams are widely used tools for analyzing, assessing and visualizing risk in many industries, and are used extensively for risk management purposes. Despite their popularity and wide application, they have recently become the object of discussion and research in scientific environments, which can be seen as part of a wider focus on foundational issues in the risk analysis discipline. Identifying several serious limitations and problems with the risk matrix approach, various authors have proposed extensions, modifications and recommendations for their use. One issue which has been raised recently but has attracted relatively limited scientific attention is the consideration of uncertainty in risk diagrams, i.e. how to visually represent and communicate uncertainty. This paper first reviews the available proposals for this question. Subsequently, the strengths and weaknesses of these proposals are discussed. Finally, some new proposals are made on how to represent uncertainty in risk diagrams in practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a security risk assessment and protection methodology that was developed for use in the chemical and process industries in Belgium. The method employs a risk-based approach according to design principles for object-oriented protection, using so-called Typicals. The approach is beneficial for workers in the chemical industry because of the familiarity with safety models and concepts in this particular industry. The model combines the rings-of-protection approach with generic security practices including management and procedures, security technology (e.g., CCTV, fences, and access control), and human interactions (proactive as well as reactive). The method is illustrated in a case-study where a practical protection plan was developed for an existing chemical company. This article demonstrates that the method is useful for similar chemical and process industrial activities far beyond the Belgian borders, as well as for cross-industrial security protection. In summary, this article offers an insight into how the chemical sector might protect itself on the one hand and an insight into how security risk management may be practiced on the other hand. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 34: 72-83, 2015 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have demonstrated that reading and following safety instructions, such as warning labels and product manuals, may serve as a defense against hazards and can prevent injuries. This paper examines the predictive value of four factors that might determine whether students read and follow safety instructions: students’ safety norm, students’ safety attitude, the sensation seeking trait and type A personality. Our investigation was carried out with 172 university students (mean age = 20.01, SD = 1.56) who participated in a paper-and-pencil survey. Regression analyses revealed that students’ safety norm and attitude were positively related to reading and following safety instructions, while sensation seeking was inversely related. Type A personality had no predictive value. Our statistical findings further revealed that female students read and follow more safety instructions than male students. Based on these research results, recommendations are formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper is a discussion paper and consists of two parts: first an introduction by the Associate Editor Genserik Reniers discussing the reason behind this article and classifying such a type of paper, and second the contribution by Terje Aven, with following abstract: The application of probability is of paramount importance for the risk and safety fields. But few of the papers in these fields explain what the probabilities introduced mean. The rules of probability are referred to, but very rarely do we see the authors of these papers defining or reflecting on how the probabilities are to be understood. The justification for this practice is that the scientific contributions mainly relate to computation of probability, and the calculus is independent of the interpretations. However, if the probabilistic analysis is to be implemented in practice, the meaning of the probabilities is essential. The probability numbers then have to be communicated, and it must be clear what a probability of 0.2 means compared to (say) 0.3. The purpose of the present paper is to point to the main alternative interpretations available and provide arguments for the use of some of these and the rejection of others, in a risk and safety context. Special focus is placed on subjective probabilities and what is referred to as value-based interpretations of such probabilities (which include betting and utility-based definitions). A main aim of the paper is to argue against these value-based interpretations and for the use of subjective probabilities understood with a reference to an uncertainty standard such as an urn, as strongly advocated by Dennis Lindley for more than 30years. Many probabilists are unfamiliar with this interpretation of probability. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A Belgian manufacturing company uses pallet movers for internal transport. Despite the company's efforts to improve occupational safety, accidents with pallet movers remain noteworthy. In order to control occupational accidents, it is crucial to have a clear view of the potential accident scenarios that are present in a company. The bow-tie method is a way to capture and visualize these accident processes in an integrative way. Included in the bow-tie are safety barriers (both technical as organizational and human) and management delivery systems that can intervene in these accident processes. Once bow-ties are composed, they are an excellent point of departure to assign indicators to the safety barriers and management delivery systems in order to control (i.e., prevent or mitigate) accident scenarios. Two types of indicators can be distinguished. Firstly, there are general indicators that are assigned to management delivery systems interrupting multiple accident scenarios, which can yield a higher safety gain (as they intervene in multiple accident scenarios). Secondly, there are scenario-specific indicators targeting one specific accident scenario, which can be valuable as they target a specific problem in the company. For the development of the bow-ties, a multi-method design with the inclusion of different data sources was used, leading to a comprehensive overview. This makes the bow-tie analysis of internal transport with pallet movers transferable to other settings where pallet movers are used for internal transport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manufacturing processes involving chemical agents are evolving at great speed. In this context, managing chemical risk is especially important towards preventing both occupational accidents and major accidents. Directive 89/391/EEC and Directive 2012/18/EU, respectively, are enforced in the European Union (EU) to this end. These directives may be further complemented by the recent ISO 45001:2018 standard regarding occupational health and safety management systems. These three management systems are closely related. However, scientific literature tackles the researching of these accidents independently. Thus, the main objective of this work is to identify and analyse the links and transitional spaces between the risk management of both types of accident. Among the results obtained, three transitional spaces can be pointed out which result from the intersection of the three systems mentioned. Similarly, the intersection of these spaces gives shape to a specific transitional space defined by the individual directives linked to Directive 89/391/EEC. These results are limited from a regulatory and technical perspective. Thus, the results are a starting point towards developing models that integrate the management systems studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract China is a major country producing and using hazardous chemicals. Unfortunately, the hazardous chemical industry is still one of the most high-risk industries in China. In recent years, especially after two devastating hazardous chemical accidents, namely “Qingdao 11.2 Crude Oil Leaking and Explosion Accident” and “Tianjin Port 8.12 Fire and Explosion Accident” which occurred in 2013 and 2015 respectively, China has attached great importance to hazardous chemical safety. The period between 2016 and 2017 is a crucial period for the future direction of hazardous chemical safety in China because China released a series of important government documents (such as ‘Thirteenth Five-Year (2016–2020) Plan for Hazardous Chemical Safety’ and ‘Comprehensive Plan for Hazardous Chemical Safety Management (December 2016–November 2019)’) to promote hazardous chemical safety in the future. What is the future development of China's hazardous chemical safety? To answer this question, this paper attempts to briefly analyze and introduce the opportunities, problems, challenges and tasks of the future of safety with hazardous chemical industrial activities in China, according to the current situation of hazardous chemical safety in China and using the latest government documents and studies. Obviously, this study can provide useful evidence and suggestions for the future of safety management in the hazardous chemical industry both within China and in other countries. Highlights • Provided an analysis of the current situation of China's hazardous chemical safety. • Analyzed the new opportunities, problems and challenges of China's hazardous chemical safety. • Introduced the future tasks of China's hazardous chemical safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of safety culture is characterised by complexity. On the one hand, the concept is challenging content-wise, and on the other hand, is it a multi-dimensional and cross-disciplinary research domain. In this paper, bibliometric analysis has been applied to the field of safety culture to identify fundamental influences and to obtain a structured overview of the characteristics and the developments in this research domain. In total, 1789 publications published between 1900 and 2015 related to safety culture were identified in Web of Science. The 1789 publications cover 4591 authors, 775 journals, 76 countries or territories, and 1866 institutions. Two main research areas can be distinguished in the domain of safety culture: (1) organisational safety culture and (2) health-care and patient safety culture. The latter research area stands in a dominant position in safety culture research nowadays. Key publications are from Guldenmund (2000) and Sexton et al. (2006). Furthermore, ‘Safety Science’ is the key journal publishing on safety culture research, and the USA, England and China are the countries that dominate the publication production. It can be concluded that there is much collaborative research in the safety culture domain as multi-authored publications make up about three quarters of all publications. Also, safety culture research is characterised by a wide variety of research themes and multidisciplinarity. Geographical inequality in the publication output is identified as a point of concern. A movement away from technical aspects towards more human aspects could be detected as a noteworthy change in research focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency response planning for major accidents in the chemical industry is essential to protect the public and workers’ health and safety, to reduce the environmental impacts, and to accelerate the resumption of normal operations. So far, much attention has been given to developing and implementing emergency planning in single chemical plants. However in chemical industrial areas – also known as chemical clusters – which consist of a number of different plants, less attention has been given to multi-plant emergency response planning. This paper is aimed at developing a multi-plant emergency response decision tool for chemical clusters in case of major accidents so that not only plant emergency levels but also respective response strategies can be determined. This way, a crisis situation within the chemical cluster can be handled in a much faster way than is the case today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative risk analysis (QRA) is widely applied in several industries as a tool to improve safety, as part of design, licensing or operational processes. Nevertheless, there is much less academic research on the validity and validation of QRA, despite their importance both for the science of risk analysis and with respect to its practical implication for decision-making and improving system safety. In light of this, this paper presents a review focusing on the validity and validation of QRA in a safety context. Theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions in the scientific literature are reviewed, focusing on three questions. Which theoretical views on validity and validation of QRA can be found? Which features of QRA are useful to validate a particular QRA, and which frameworks are proposed to this effect? What kinds of claims are made about QRA, and what evidence is available for QRA being valid for the stated purposes? A discussion follows the review, focusing on the available evidence for the validity of QRA and the effectiveness of validation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The important concepts of safety climate and occupational burnout have been widely addressed by healthcare professionals. However, few researchers conducted comprehensive and detailed studies to investigate the relationship between safety climate and burnout, especially in healthcare organizations. The purpose of the study is therefore to investigate and establish a relationship between safety climate and occupational burnout. In addition, the relationship between job and socio-demographic characteristics (JSDC) with both safety climate and burnout is examined. In the present study a cross-sectional design was conducted using questionnaires to measure safety climate, occupational burnout and JSDC of nurses while descriptive, inferential statistics, path analysis and structural equation modeling (SEM) were applied to test the relationships between the three parameters. The findings show a significant relationship between safety climate and unit type, job satisfaction, job interest, and stress. Likewise, there is a strong relationship between the lack of personal accomplishment and job satisfaction, job interest and stress. Also, safety climate has a strong correlation with both the frequency and the severity of occupational burnout dimensions. The results of the SEM also support a negative correlation between occupational burnout and safety climate, where a decrease in the latter is associated with an increase in the former. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper provides a systematic review of research work on safety barriers in the chemical process industries. • A novel classification of safety barriers, based on the identification and management of performance indicators, is proposed. • Safety barrier functions are identified and illustrated using the resilience engineering concepts. • The roadmap for future studies to develop integrated management of safety and security barriers for assurance of the resilience of chemical plants is suggested. Barriers are used in various forms to assure the safety of chemical plants. A deep understanding of the literature related to safety barriers is essential to tackle the challenges in improving their design and management. This paper first provides an overview of the history of the development of the safety barrier concept. Subsequently, this paper elaborates a systematic review of the definition, classification, evaluation, performance assessment, and management of safety barriers in the chemical process industries. Based on the literature review, this study proposes a practical classification of safety barriers benefiting the identification of performance indicators and the collection of indicator-related data for safety barriers. The safety barrier functions are extended and illustrated by involving the resilience concept. Performance assessment criteria are proposed corresponding to the adaptability and recoverability of the safety barriers. Finally, the management of safety barriers is discussed. The roadmap for future studies to develop integrated management of safety and security barriers to ensure the resilience of chemical plants is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inherent safety design principles have been used extensively to design safer plants. However, to date their application is merely limited to technical changes in the process. An unexplored area of ISD is related to all the non-technical aspects linked to the safety of industrial plants, such as the Human and Organizational Factors, often referred to as HOFs. This study presents an Inherent Safety Decision Making framework (ISDDM), with the objective to provide a structured tool that can be easily used by industrial practitioners. The novelty of the ISDDM is the provision of a structured framework where purely technical and non-technical ISD alternatives are categorized and analyzed, to check if possible interactions exist among the alternatives proposed. To prove the usefulness of the model, a case-study addressing a carbon capture plant is carried out. This technology will play an important role in the reduction of CO 2 emission in carbon-intense industrial processes, implying a rapid scale-up of these plants in the next years, therefore justifying the analysis of this green technology. Adopting the proposed ISDDM, the improvements in terms of safety from the base case ranged from 58% to around 70% for the best design solution, while from an economic perspective, cost variations were comprised between 16% and 22%. The results of the study demonstrate that the framework can be rigorously implemented and that it provides a considerable number of additional alternatives due to the inclusion of HOFs in the analysis. In conclusion, an improved and adequate ISD is a key to environmental sustainability. [Display omitted] • The link between Inherent Safety and Human and Organizational factors is explored. • A framework for addressing technical and non-technical safety factors is proposed. • A carbon capture plant is used to demonstrate the framework's functionality. • The Safety index utilized for the carbon capture process is improved by 70%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with the expansion of China's chemical industry, a series of catastrophic chemical accidents have occurred, often with severe human casualties, resulting in adverse effects on the sustainable development. In line with these developments, process safety research is also developing rapidly in China. This paper aims to present insights in the progress of process safety research in China using bibliometric analysis. The results indicate that in China the most productive authors, institutions, and provinces are located in economically developed coastal areas and in areas with more universities specializing in safety science and engineering. As for the international cooperation, the most significant collaborating countries are economically developed countries or China's neighbors, and these countries have published a large number of papers important in this field. The citation analysis shows that Chinese process safety research currently still has a relatively limited international impact. The analysis of hot topics shows that there currently are very few new methods or research topics introduced in recent years, and there is still significant room for the Chinese research community to improve in some subdomains of the research field. Based on these trends and apparent shortcomings in the literature, future research directions are proposed. The results contribute to understanding the overall situation of process safety research in China, and can serve as a high-level synthesis of the research field. This information is useful for developing research and development policies and industrial strategies, and benefits the safety and sustainability of China's chemical industries. • The study applies bibliometric analysis in mapping process safety research in China. • The most influential Chinese authors, institutes, areas, and papers are identified. • National and international cooperation among authors and institutes is analyzed. • Hot topics and trends are identified using terms co-occurrence network. • Several avenues for future research are proposed based on analysis results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate how warehouse safety can be assessed and facilitated. Methodology Through a literature study, we build a theoretical framework to provide insights in how safety in Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) can be assessed and facilitated. We perform a case study at a large Dutch LSP using interviews and questionnaires to determine the relevance of the sub-dimensions to assess warehouse safety. Findings Using literature, we identify people, procedures and technology related sub-dimensions of safety culture and safety behavior and factors that may affect how safety culture translates to safety behavior. Using a case study our findings indicate which sub-dimensions and influencing factors LSP employees find important and why. We found differences in the importance assigned to safety, which may point to the existence of sub-cultures across warehouses. Research limitations/implications This paper contributes to the limited existing warehouse safety literature in which the factors that influence safety are not well explored. Although the case study investigates one LSP and as such does not generalize across LSPs, it provides valuable insights in important aspects of safety and how they can be influenced. Practical implications This paper offers safety managers insights in how to assess and facilitate safety within their warehouses. Originality Although warehouse safety is important, there is scarce academic research that explores this issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The problem of work safety greatly affects many parts of the world, especially developing countries such as China. The release of the Thirteenth Five-Year Guideline for National Economic and Social Development in March 2016 marked the beginning of China’s Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (13th FYP) period (2016–2020). Work safety continues to be a national priority. Since the release, a newly important work safety policy, namely the 13th FYP for Work Safety has been announced on February 3, 2017 in accordance with the Thirteenth Five-Year Guideline for National Economic and Social Development. What is the current status, what are new challenges and future tasks of work safety during China’s 13th FYP period? The two key objectives of this paper are: (1) to analyze the current status of work safety in China, and (2) to introduce the new challenges and future tasks during China’s 13th FYP period briefly. Firstly, a statistical analysis of accidents and occupational diseases in recent years in China was carried out, and a brief introduction to safety management on the national level in China has been given to analyze the work safety status in the whole of China. Secondly, combining with the demand for economic and social development in China, and according to the suggestions in the 13th FYP for Work Safety and the current status of work safety in China, the new challenges and future tasks of work safety during China’s 13th FYP period are also introduced. This study can promote the cooperation and exchange of knowledge on work safety between China and other countries to provide evidence-based services for work safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The threat originating from deliberate attacks against process and chemical sites where relevant quantities of hazardous substances are stored or processed is a credible one, as confirmed by the attacks carried out in France in the summer of 2015. Although such chemical sites implement multiple layers of protection to address safety-related accidents, they often get behind with providing adequate attention and resources to the protection of assets against external adversaries or, in other words, terrorist threats. The lack of a consolidated practice in the risk-informed implementation of security countermeasures goes hand in hand with the existence of very few rigorous approaches to the effectiveness assessment of security systems, and in particular of physical protection systems (PPSs). The present study addresses the issue of quantitatively assessing the effectiveness of physical security systems adopted to protect process and storage facilities, recognized as high-consequence loss physical assets. To this purpose, the security functions of PPSs were analyzed to guide the selection of performance parameters. Experts from the industry were involved to identify variables and influencing factors relevant to the successful accomplishment of security functions. Experience-based judgments on performance, to be expressed in terms of probabilistic estimates, were also obtained. An insight into the belief that experts hold on the probability of PPSs effectively preventing the success of an external attack and in the identification of critical elements was obtained. The application of the results to the quantitative assessment of the contribution of security controls in reducing vulnerability was also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Professional accreditation of undergraduate Chemical Engineering and Safety Engineering majors in higher education institutions in China. • Chemical process safety education through different majors. • The current discipline construction of the newly established major Chemical Safety Engineering in China. • Suggestions to further promote chemical process safety education. The chemical process industry (CPI) in China is developing rapidly with installations becoming more complicated and integrated to meet people's rising demands for chemical-related products. However, the fast-growing CPI has caused catastrophic consequences and bad social influence due to accidents occurred in the last decades, which has threatened its sustainable development. As one of the solutions, the Chinese government is promoting chemical process safety education to train interdisciplinary graduates who understand both chemical process and loss prevention, who are skilled in technology, and how to manage risk. In this paper, we reviewed the development of chemical process safety education in China by researching syllabuses of accredited undergraduate Chemical Engineering and Safety Engineering majors in higher education institutions, discussed the associated shortcomings by analyzing the current discipline construction of the newly established major Chemical Safety Engineering , including education methodologies, resources, faculties, curriculum provision, and professional accreditation. Based on the analysis results, suggestions were provided to encourage institutions to strengthen chemical process safety education, thereby inherently reducing human errors and consequently improving the safety of the entire CPI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An integrated model based on DHSI, BN modeling and risk analysis is proposed for risk assessment of utility tunnels. • The risk evaluated by economic loss and casualty of UUT accidents can be predicted. • The integrated method is demonstrated to evaluate the risk level of a real-world utility tunnel. With the rapid urbanization, urban underground utility tunnels have seen fast growth in China in the past few years. Urban utility tunnels can house various kinds of city 'lifelines' such as natural gas pipeline, heat pipeline, water supply system, sewer pipeline, electricity and telecommunication cables, which are of great significance to guarantee essential flows of energy, information and logistics for urban life. If a utility tunnel accident occurs, the consequences could be catastrophic. Risk assessment has been an important tool to examine the safety performance of industrial facilities and the effectiveness of safety measures. In this study, an integrated model based on dynamic hazard scenario identification (DHSI), Bayesian network (BN) modeling and risk analysis is proposed for risk assessment of urban utility tunnels. The worst-case scenario of urban utility tunnel accidents is identified by DHSI and modelled by BN. Meanwhile, risk analysis is conducted based on the results of BN considering casualties and economic losses. Finally, the integrated method is applied to evaluate the risk level of a real-world utility tunnel. The results indicate that the integrated quantitative risk assessment framework is an alternative and effective tool for safety assessment and land-use planning of urban utility tunnels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• An approach for modeling influencing factors on occupational accident is proposed. • Its reliability and validity are confirmed using advanced statistics tests. • A DHBN model using CFA is developed for dynamic accident occurrence modeling. • The behavior of latent influencing factors is predicted over the next ten years. • The model can serve for making tailored decisions for safety in various workplaces. Multiple factors contribute to occupational accidents including individual, job, environmental, organizational, and family issues. Most of them are latent factors and hard to model how and what extent they influence incidents occurrence. Although past research has included an occupational incident context, this attention has rarely provided a holistic instrument for the dynamic causal modeling of different influencing factors. Hence, the present study is aimed at developing a concrete instrument for identifying and modeling various influencing factors on occupational accident occurrence. After a comprehensive literature review and employing occupational safety and industrial psychological experts to achieve a reasonable conceptual model, the primary structure of the instrument was developed. Several systematic attempts were made to identify items (questions), define contributing factors, assess content and face validity, analyze its reliability, construct validity, criterion validity, and assess the model's fitness using advanced statistics tests by SPSS.22 and LISREL9.3 programs. Finally, dynamic hybrid Bayesian Network (DHBN) based on the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) technique was developed to model accident occurrence and simulate the behavior of the main influencing factors over ten years under uncertainty. After standardization of the proposed instrument, a comprehensive study was conducted via the participation of 700 workers from thirty-eight manufacturing companies to illustrate its effectiveness and modeling capability. The findings revealed the effectiveness of the proposed instrument in the causation modeling of occupational incidents, dynamic modeling of contributing factors, and risk-based decision making for occupational incidents management. The proposed instrument can serve as a holistic tool for accurately identifying and dynamic modeling of different latent influencing factors, and making tailored safety decisions in different workplace context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]