Showing papers by "Enrico Cagno published in 2000"

Risk and Causes-of-Risk Assessment for an Effective Industrial Safety Management

Abstract: It is widely accepted that progressive improvement of industrial safety is heavily dependent on the introduction of a systematic vision of man{machine{workplace interactions. In this respect, the risk assessment is one of the most critical tasks in the management of industrial safety. The paper presents a risk assessment approach, which uses analytic hierarchy process (AHP) to directly and holistically estimate risk, showing greater flexibility in comparison to traditional methods. In the rst phase (risk assessment), given a work task, the methodology allows to support risk characterization and prioritization of hazards within a hierarchical framework. In the second phase (causes assessment), the proposed methodology supports the influence analysis of the main causes of risk | machine, operator, procedures and environment | providing management with a more rational framework to make decisions and allocate resources devoted to safety improvement actions. The methodology is illustrated with reference to a case study concerning machining operations.

Sensitivity of Replacement Priorities for Gas Pipeline Maintenance

Abstract: Knowledge management is a key issue in the industrial field because of the difficulties in both properly quantifying experts’ judgments and integrating them with available historical data. Although many studies have been proposed on expert knowledge elicitation, new methods are still sought and practical applications are used to validate the effectiveness of the proposed ones.

Cost Estimation of Industrial Risk in the Bidding Process

Abstract: Project cost estimation in the bidding process is a critical concern for the competitiveness and profitability of an engineering and contracting company. Estimates which diverge as little as possible from actual costs have to be made on the basis of relatively limited information. Of the macro-items contributing to the overall cost of a plant project, those linked to engineering activities have been growing continuously in percentage terms for a number of years and have thus become the object of considerable interest. Moreover, since these items are difficult to standardise, estimation is particularly difficult. A method able to produce reliable estimates for these activities could certainly be usefully transferred to other project stages. The methodology proposed to formulate a bid estimate for a HAZOP study envisages the joint use of three tools to produce more accurate estimates and improve the quality of decisions through explicit assessment of the risk of over-estimating (or under-estimating) the cost. First, an analytical estimation model based on improved structuring of available information provides more accurate estimates and facilitates the use of IT applications. Second, company knowledge gained in previous projects is structured and maintained in order to ensure continuous improvement in estimation. This information can be used to improve over time the understanding of the determinant values in the model itself, so obtaining increasingly accurate estimates and probability distributions which take account of historical errors. Finally, a simulation technique provides the probability distribution of the overall cost and thus the confidence interval of the estimates.