Hierarchy of Controls Analysis for Equipment Failures Prevention

Equipment failures play significant roles in most accidents that occur and recur in the chemical process industry. Many risk reduction strategies were applied to prevent these accidents but the accidents keep on happening. In this study, 50 equipment-related accidents are analyzed based on their comprehensive accident investigation reports, retrieved from several accident databases to determine the preferred accident prevention strategies of the industry. Based on the analysis, 91 % out of 590 recommended corrective actions are procedural strategies. Other layers of hierarchy of controls are only 9 % i.e. active-engineered (3.4 %), inherently safer (3.1 %), and passive-engineered (2.5 %). An analysis using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) shows a significant relationship exists between the groups of hierarchy of controls. By emphasizing on the most reliable group of hierarchy of controls for equipment failures prevention such as inherently safer, passive-engineered, and active-engineered accident prevention strategies, the preference for procedural strategies in the industry may be reduced.