Investigations of Human and Organizational Factors in hazardous vapor accidents

Abstract

This paper presents a model to assess the contribution of Human and Organizational Factor (HOF) to accidents. The proposed model is made up of two phases. The first phase is the qualitative analysis of HOF responsible for accidents, which utilizes Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) to seek out latent HOFs. The hierarchy of HOFs identified in the first phase provides inputs for the analysis in the second phase, which is a quantitative analysis using Bayesian Network (BN). BN enhances the ability of HFACS by allowing investigators or domain experts to measure the degree of relationships among the HOFs. In order to estimate the conditional probabilities of BN, fuzzy analytical hierarchy process and decomposition method are applied in the model. Case studies show that the model is capable of seeking out critical latent human and organizational errors and carrying out quantitative analysis of accidents. Thereafter, corresponding safety prevention measures are derived. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.