TOSCA - Total operations management for safety critical activities: Industry needs for innovative methods

The Total Operations Management for Safety Critical Activities (TOSCA) project is a European Project aimed at an innovative approach able to integrate and enhance safety, quality and productivity. The scope of TOSCA is to work out a well-established and economically suitable framework in which the most innovative tools and techniques (advanced 3D software, virtual reality, innovative theoretical models, updated information exchange protocols etc.) are operated together in order to get advantage of the possible synergies in processing standards requirements, fulfill regulations, improve safety and enhance productivity. The work that has been performed and is presented in this paper aims at defining the needs of the industry regarding the development of an integrated methodology for assessing safety, quality and operations management. As the most appropriate method the execution of surveys and interviews has been chosen in order to assess the present situation of the industrial installations handling toxic and flammable substances. The major parts of both the interview guide and the surveys were the following: a) safety management system; b) risk assessment process and c) proposals to improve risk assessment. Questions related to the safety management system concern organisation, resources, documentation and communication, design, management of changes, monitoring, safety performance indicators and commitment of personnel. The risk assessment process covers questions on methods used such as hazard identification, accident sequence determination, consequence assessment, human factor analysis and risk quantification. Finally proposals to improve risk assessment include questions concerning the use of virtual reality methods for training and visualisation of critical activities.