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    Identifying patterns of safety related incidents in a steel plant using association rule mining of incident investigation reports
    (Elsevier, 2014-12) Verma, Abhishek
    The aim of this paper is to find out the patterns of incidents in a steel plant in India. Occupational incidents occur in steel plant mainly in form of injury, near miss, and property damage or in combination. Different factors are responsible for such incidents to occur. An incident investigation scheme is proposed. Association rule mining approach is used to discover cause-and-affect patterns (rules) using 843 incidents. Thirty-five meaningful association rules are extracted using three criteria, support (S), confidence (C) and lift (L). For example, the results show that unsafe acts done by others are more frequent in injury cases (S = 4.86%, C = 78.8%, L = 2.3). Similarly, one of the SOP (standard operating procedures) related rule: ‘SOP required, available, adequate but not complied’ led to property damage (S = 11.03%, C = 49.2%, L = 1.525). Another useful rule ‘SOP required, available but inadequate, followed’ led to near miss (S = 1.66%, C = 38.89%, L = 1.163). It is also found that for slip, trip and fall incidents, workers working alone (S = 3.91%, C = 76.74%, L = 2.239) or in a group (S = 3.20%, C = 75.00%, L = 2.188) does not make much difference. The findings pinpoint the areas of improvement such as inadequate SOPs, non-compliance of SOPs, training, and slip, trip and fall prevention to minimize incidents.
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    A preliminary analysis of incident investigation reports of an integrated steel plant: some reflection
    (Taylor & Francis, 2017-12) Verma, Abhishek
    Large integrated steel plants employ an effective safety management system and gather a significant amount of safety-related data. This research intends to explore and visualize the rich database to find out the key factors responsible for the occurrences of incidents. The study was carried out on the data in the form of investigation reports collected from a steel plant in India. The data were processed and analysed using some of the quality management tools like Pareto chart, control chart, Ishikawa diagram, etc. Analyses showed that causes of incidents differ depending on the activities performed in a department. For example, fire/explosion and process-related incidents are more common in the departments associated with coke-making and blast furnace. Similar kind of factors were obtained, and recommendations were provided for their mitigation. Finally, the limitations of the study were discussed, and the scope of the research works was identified.
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    Analysis of categorical incident data and design for safety interventions using axiomatic design framework
    (Springer, 2020-03) Verma, Abhishek
    Although analysing categorical data from incident investigation reports provides meaningful associations amongst causal factors of incidents, however, to date, no studies considered these associations in designing actionable interventions for safety improvement. We propose a methodology using descriptive analytics and axiomatic design framework. In this study, we have analysed injury, and ‘property-damage’ data, collected for 45 months from a large integrated steel plant. The data are analysed using the contingency table, Cramer’s V, Phi coefficients (ϕ) and Fisher’s exact test. The ‘wire-making division’ is the most injury-prone. Unsafe acts done by fellow workers are significantly causing injuries in ‘support services’, maintenance and ‘steel-making’. The property-damage cases are mostly reported in ‘steel-making division’, and caused by material-handling, crane-dashing, toxic-chemical, hot-metal and process-related incidents. It is also found that SOP inadequacy and non-compliance are significantly associated with ‘property-damage’ incidents. The key interventions from axiomatic design are as follows. For process-related incidents, regular inspection and maintenance of safety-critical equipment should be done. Safety-critical instrument and alarms can also be used to monitor safe operating limits of processes. Unsafe acts by fellow workers are the result of lack of coordination and communication. So, the management should identify and provide the types of safety training necessary to improve the same. The material-handling related problems can be handled through improved staff competency and communication. To address the SOP related issues, operating procedures should be reviewed, revised and communicated regularly.