Institute for Risk Management and Safety Analysis,

Abstract

The study is focused on how to model and assess safety at industrial installations. A starting point was the concept of safety function, which is defined as a technical, organisational or combined function, which can reduce the probability and/or consequences of a set of hazards in a specific system. A tentative theoretical framework has been developed. In a case study, a workplace at a process industry was analysed. A number of safety functions were identified and characterised according to the frame-work. The efficiency of these safety functions was assessed, and a few different approaches were tried in this evaluation. A conclusion was that the safety function concept worked well in the practical analysis of the safety in the studied system. It was also clear that there is a need for further improvement of the theoretical framework, and a number of ideas came up during the case study.