Active and Knowledge-based Process Safety Incident Retrieval System

Abstract

The sustainability and continued development of the chemical industry is to a large extent dependent on learning from past incidents. The failure to learn from past mistakes is rather not deliberate but due to unawareness of the situation. Incident databases are excellent resources to learn from past mistakes; however, in order to be effective, incident databases need to be functional in disseminating the lessons learned to users. Therefore, this research is dedicated to improving user accessibility of incident databases. The objective of this research is twofold. The first objective is improving accessibility of the database system by allowing the option of word search as well as folder search for the users. This will satisfy research needs of users who are aware of the hazards at hand and need to access the relevant information. The second objective is to activate the database via integration of the database with an operational software. This will benefit research needs of users who are unaware of the existing hazards. Literature review and text mining of Major Accident Reporting System (MARS) database short reports are employed to develop an initial taxonomy, which is then refined and modified by expert review. The incident reports in MARS database is classified to the right folders in the taxonomy and implemented in a database system based on Microsoft Excel, where the users can retrieve information using folder search as well as word search option via a user friendly interface. A program coded in JAVA is prepared for integrating the incident database with a Management of Change (MOC) software prototype. A collection of keywords on hazardous substances and equipment is prepared. If the keywords exist in the MOC interface, they will be highlighted, and with the click of a button, will return up to ten relevant incident reports. Using an active and knowledge-based system, people can learn from incidents and near-misses and will be more active to reduce the frequency of recurring incidents.