Development of a risk-informed decision framework to derive the optimal organizational safety budget across globally dispersed manufacturing sites

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Major chemical accidents not only result in immediate human and property losses, but can lead to significant losses in way of business interruptions which have the potential for affecting the viability of an organization. As part of overall process safety management, one of the critical strategies against such debilitating losses is anticipatory investment into safety practices that can help avoid future accident costs. The current approach to such investments in the chemical process industry is driven largely by simple risk-based heuristics, subscription to insurance, organizational culture and management judgment. There is, however, an absence of an overarching methodology to assist such an effort. There is, therefore, a need for employing a robust decision-making framework for enabling systematic and optimal allocation of financial resources across all significant risk elements within a process facility. A risk-informed approach can help target maximal reduction of risk values across all potential hazards within the constraint of a given safety investment budget, such that it saves future accident costs to the company. The present research will involve the development and demonstration of a risk-informed investment approach so as to enable an optimal allocation of resources for an organization with multiple, globally-dispersed manufacturing sites.

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