Use of safety analysis in automatic production systems

Abstract

Rundmo, T., Sten, T. and Kjellén, U., 1990. Use of safety analysis in automatic production systems. Journal of Occupational Accidents, 12: 139–147. The majority of occupational accidents in automatic production systems happens during maintenance, testing or during handling of irregularities in the production process where operators and maintenance personnel are required to intervene. Methods for safety analysis in such systems have to appraise these various operational conditions. Norsk Hydro has contracted SINTEF to develop a method for safety analysis in automatic production systems, and to test and evaluate the method in three case studies. The analysis identifies work tasks inside the danger zone of a production system and potential accident scenarios connected to these tasks. Various checklists have been developed to support each step in the examination. The method has been tested in case studies at two automatic mechanical production systems and one chemical process plant at Norsk Hydro. The article presents the method for safety analysis and results from the case studies.