Dynamic approach to risk management: Application to the Hoeganaes metal dust accidents

Several major accidents caused by metal dusts were recorded in the past few years. For instance, in 2011, three accidents caused by iron dust killed five workers at the Hoeganaes Corp. facility in Gallatin, Tennessee (USA). In order to prevent such accidents, a dynamic approach to risk management was defined in this study. The method is able to take into account new risk notions and early warnings and to systematically update the related risk. It may be applied not only in the design phase of a system, but also throughout the system lifetime as a support to a more precise and robust decision making process. The synergy of two specific techniques for hazard identification and risk assessment was obtained: the Dynamic Procedure for Atypical Scenarios Identification (DyPASI) and the Dynamic Risk Assessment (DRA) methods. To demonstrate its effectiveness, this approach was applied to the analysis of Gallatin metal dust accidents. The application allowed collecting a number of risk notions related to the plant, equipment and materials used. The analysis of risk notions by means of this dynamic approach could have led to enhanced hazard identification and dynamic real-time risk assessment. However, the approach described is effective only if associated to a proper safety culture, in order to produce an appropriate and robust decision making response to emerging risk issues.