Safety Risk Assessment in the Tile Industry with a New Approach

Abstract

Background & Aims: Despite the relative comfort and welfare today’s modern technology has brought to humankind, it has also been the basis for the emergence of risks and threats. These risks and risk factors should be assessed and controlled using systematic risk assessment and management methods. Numerous techniques and methods have been developed to analyze risks, each of which has its own strengths and weaknesses. One of the system risk analysis techniques, which is among qualitative techniques and identifies and analyzes system risks inductively, is the functional hazard analysis (FuHA) technique. The present study aims to identify and control risks that occur due to technical defects or system dysfunctions and can lead to an unpleasant event, as occurred in an industrial unit in 2016. Methods: In this cross-sectional analytical study, the functional risks of an industrial unit were analyzed using the FuHA technique. By implementing the FuHA technique in the investigated industrial unit, 17 functional defects were identified. Results: In general, according to the level of severity of different consequences caused by the identified defects, 60 functional risks were identified, of which 7 cases (11.67%) were assessed as unacceptable, 17 cases (28.33%) as unfavorable, and 36 cases (60%) as acceptable but needing revision. Conclusion: The results of this study showed that the FuHA technique had a favorable ability to identify and analyze system and subsystem functional risks, especially software subsystems.