Pandemic Risk Management. Protecting people while ensuring business continuity

The COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe in the latter half of 2019, throughout 2020 and into 2021. In response, many companies implemented work from home policies, while others stopped operations entirely in an effort to limit the spread throughout their workforce and supporting communities. This containment strategy was not universally viable;long-term shutdowns impacted the economic viability of companies, and some industries were designated as an 'essential service' and thus continued operations. These employers faced the proposition of balancing the needs of the business and the community with a continued responsibility to provide a safe workplace for employees. This paper, and accompanying presentation, will demonstrate how the application of bowtie analysis, a commonly adopted methodology in high hazard industries, can help the risks associated with continued operation in a pandemic to be better understood and managed, thus ensuring the safety of both your personnel and business. © 36th Center for Chemical Process Safety International Conference, CCPS 2021 - Topical Conference at the 2021 AIChE Spring Meeting and 17th Global Congress on Process Safety.

Assessment of COVID-19 barrier effectiveness using process safety techniques.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) causes a respiratory illness called the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19). COVID-19 was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Bow tie analysis (BTA) was applied to analyze the hazard of SARS-CoV-2 for three receptor groups: patient or family member at the IWK Health Centre in acute care, staff member at a British Columbia Forest Safety Council (BCFSC) wood pellet facility, and staff member at the Suncor refinery in Sarnia, Ontario. An inherently safer design (ISD) protocol for BTA was used as a guide for evaluating COVID-19 barriers, and additional COVID-19 controls were recommended. Two communication tools were developed from the IWK bow tie diagram to disseminate the research findings. This research provides lessons learned about the barriers implemented to protect people from contracting COVID-19, and about the use of bow tie diagrams as communication tools. This research has also developed additional example-based guidance that can be used for the COVID-19 pandemic or future respiratory illness pandemics. Recommended future work is the application of BTA to additional industries, the consideration of ISD principles in other control types in the hierarchy of controls (HOC), and further consideration of human and organizational factors (HOF) in BTA.

Risk and Crisis Management – Semiconductor Shortages in the Automotive Industry

As the epidemic situation became more widespread in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic impact on a wide variety of industries began to grow steadily. One sector particularly affected by this issue is the automotive indus-try, which relies on a smooth supply chain largely because of the large number of electrical and mechanical components. One of these components are so-called semiconductors. The following article presents an analysis of the semiconductor shortage in the automotive industry in the context of risk and crisis management and derives recommendations for action. In addition to outlining the causes, the article focuses primarily on the question of how solution strategies for preventing a global semiconductor shortage could look in the future. The central question for this consideration is: could the current situation have been prevented by more effective risk and crisis management?. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston, Germany.

Pandemic Risk Management;Protecting people while ensuring business continuity

The COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe in the latter half of 2019,throughout 2020 and into 2021. In response,many companies implemented work from home policies,while others stopped operations entirely in an effort to limit the spread throughout their workforce and supporting communities. This containment strategy was not universally viable;long-term shutdowns impacted the economic viability of companies,and some industries were designated as anessential service and thus continued operations. These employers faced the proposition of balancing the needs of the business and the community with a continued responsibility to provide a safe workplace for employees. This paper,and accompanying presentation,will demonstrate how the application of bowtie analysis,a commonly adopted methodology in high hazard industries,can help the risks associated with continued operation in a pandemic to be better understood and managed,thus ensuring the safety of both your personnel and business. Copyright © American Institute of Chemical Engineers. All rights reserved.

Integrating Risk Assessment and Decision-Making Methods in Analyzing the Dynamics of COVID-19 Epidemics in Davao City, Mindanao Island, Philippines.

The COVID-19 pandemic has become a public health crisis in the Philippines and the attention of national and local health authorities is focused on managing the fluctuating COVID-19 cases. This study presents a method that integrates risk management tools into health care decision-making processes to enhance the understanding and utilization of risk-based thinking in public health decision making. The risk assessment consists of the identification of the key risk factors of the COVID-19 contagion via bow-tie diagrams. Second, the safety controls for each risk factor relevant to the Davao City context are taken into account and are identified as barriers in the bow-tie. After which, the prioritization of the identified COVID-19 risks, as well as the effectiveness of the proposed interventions, is performed using the analytic hierarchy process. Consequently, the dynamics of COVID-19 management initiatives were explored using these priorities and a system of ordinary differential equations. Our results show that reducing the number of COVID-19 fatalities should be the top priority of the health authorities. In turn, we predict that the COVID-19 contagion can be controlled and eliminated in Davao city in three-month time after prioritizing the fatalities. In order to reduce the COVID-19 fatalities, health authorities should ensure an adequate number of COVID-ready ICU facilities. The general public, on the other hand, should follow medical and science-based advice and suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients should strictly follow isolation protocols. Overall, an informed decision-making is necessary to avoid the unwanted consequences of an uncontrolled contagion.

Identification of Maritime Education and Training Institutions (METIs) risk in pandemic restrictions

The unprecedented COVID-19 crisis apparently has questioned our systems' survivability nationally or even in a global context. The pandemic has proven the indispensable role of international shipping in our societies’ sustainability. Still, one of the main challenges for the shipping industry is to secure the supply of competent seafarers. Typically, Maritime Education and Training Institutions' (METIs’) core mission revolves around keeping such demand supplied, however in restrictive situations, METIs' capability to achieve their mission is still questionable. During the pandemic restrictions, METIs are likely exposed to many uncertainties that directly threaten their role and may lead to hazardous consequences. In such scenarios, many questions arise to challenge whether the institution/organizational levels of control are sufficient or additional barriers to keep the risk as low as reasonably practicable are needed. Consequently, this research investigates the possible threats exposed to METIs under such conditions, the potential consequences if they lose control of their operations, and the required barriers to prevent, detect, or protect the METIs from such a failure. To achieve this aim, a survey was designed to capture the expertise of a group of Maritime Education and Training (MET) experts. The survey responses have been quantified and statistically analysed to comprehensively identify these risk factors, their contribution, and their effectiveness. © 2021 21st Annual General Assembly, IAMU AGA 2021 - Proceedings of the International Association of Maritime Universities ,IAMU Conference. All rights reserved.

Application of bow tie analysis and inherently safer design to the novel coronavirus hazard.

This work involves the application of process safety concepts to other fields, specifically bow tie analysis and inherently safer design (ISD) to COVID-19. An analysis framework was designed for stakeholders to develop COVID-19 risk management plans for specific scenarios and receptor groups. This tool is based on the incorporation of the hierarchy of controls (HOC) within bow tie analysis to identify priority barriers. The analysis framework incorporates inherently safer design (ISD) principles allowing stakeholders to assess the adequacy of controls along with the consideration of degradation factors and controls. A checklist has also been developed to help stakeholders identify opportunities to apply the ISD principles of minimization, substitution, moderation, and simplification. This work also considers barrier effectiveness with respect to human and organization factors (HOF) in degradation factors and controls. This paper includes a collection of bow tie elements to develop bow tie diagrams for specific receptor groups and scenarios in Nova Scotia, Canada. The pandemic stage (At-Peak or Post-Peak) and its influence on different scenarios or settings is also considered in this work. Bow tie diagrams were developed for numerous receptor groups; bow tie diagrams modelling a generally healthy individual, a paramedic and a hair salon patron contracting COVID-19 are presented in this work.