Operations research methods in preventing domino accidents in the chemical process industry

This text summarizes the results related to Operations research contained in the PhD thesis defended by the author in June 2006 under the supervision of Karel Soudan at the Universiteit Antwerpen in Belgium. The thesis is written in English and is available from the author upon request (Reniers in shaping an integrated cluster safety culture in the chemical process industry, 415 p, 2006a). This work investigates the optimization of major accident precautions in the chemical process industry. An integrated cluster safety culture is shaped by developing three separate capabilities (procedural, human, and technological) and by both integrating and optimizing them using the well-known Deming loop. The technological (Operations research) part develops a cluster management decision support system. The latter tool offers prevention planning guidance in taking adequate precaution measures to overcome complex domino effect risks.