BACKGROUND:
At a large chemical park maintenance is contracted by the major companies
operating the plants to many small firms. The cultural and psychological
isolation of contractor workers was recognized a root cause of severe
accidents in the recent years. That problem is common in chemical industry.
OBJECTIVE:
The knowledge sharing has been assumed a good key to involve contractors and
sub contractors in safety culture and contributing to injuries prevention.
The selection of personal protective equipment PPE for the maintenance works
has been taken as benchmark to demonstrate the adequateness of the proposed
approach.
METHOD:
To support plant operators, contractors and subcontractors in PPE
discussion, a method has been developed. Its core is a knowledge-base,
organized in an Ontology, as suitable for inferring decisions. By means of
this tool all stakeholders have merged experience and information and find
out the right PPE, to be provided, with adequate training and information
package.
RESULTS:
PPE selection requires sound competencies about process and environmental
hazards, including major accident, preventive and protective
measures, maintenance activities. These pieces of knowledge previously
fragmented among plant operators and contractors, have to be pooled, and
used to find out the adequate PPE for a number of maintenance works.
CONCLUSIONS:
The PPE selection is per se important, but it is also a good chance to break
the contractors' isolation and involve them in safety objectives. Thus by
pooling experience and practical knowledge, the common understanding of
safety issues has been strengthened.
