Are You Saved? HIM, an Intranet-based Expert System Reduces Fatality Risk
On July 28, 1998 a devastating accident occurred at the Test Reactor Area of the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL). The accident cost a man his life and caused injury to others. In addition to the significant human loss, Lockheed Martin (LMITCO) experienced economic losses that reached millions of dollars. LMITCO eventually lost the managing and operating contract of a premier Department of Energy Laboratory. Just as with the INEEL, companies throughout industry today must face an ever increasingly complex world of government alphabet soup of regulations—OSHA, CAA, TSCA, FIFRA, ADA, and more. For businesses, non-compliance can quickly evaporate profits. For humans, mistakes can seriously affect health, and some work areas are so complicated that a single event could cost human life. Finally, adherence to the regulations can protect the community and the environment. Compliance with regulations is essential and multifaceted. Regulations require interpretation into company policy. Policies must be implemented as standard work practices. The workforce must be trained to follow the procedures. Management must coordinate flow down of requirements and policy for standardized work planning processes and consistent compliance with regulations. Implementing controls to ensure absolute compliance can be a very costly and cumbersome effort, thus, a graded approach is necessary to ensure cost effectiveness and relevance to actual work. The INEEL has developed technology for hazard evaluation and work planning called the Hazards Identification and Mitigation System. The HIM System is a web-based expert system that is available to all INEEL employees through the company Intranet. This tool simplifies and streamlines work planning by using a graded approach to standardize practices. The tool assists in evaluating hazards and ascertaining the required rigor for planning work. The tool integrates the knowledge of INEEL and DOE experts and previously proven review checklists and processes.The manual process is lengthy—sometimes taking 12 to 18 hours to complete. As such, it is difficult, prone to errors, and very tempting to shortcut. Automation of this process through the HIM system reduced a monumental hazard identification task for each work order, into a streamlined, efficient, and accurate process that can be completed in less than one hour. The result is that the process gets done, the regulations are met, and risk to human life is reduced.
- Research Organization:
- Idaho National Lab. (INL), Idaho Falls, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC07-99ID-13727
- OSTI ID:
- 910700
- Report Number(s):
- INEEL/CON-00-00422; TRN: US200802%%77
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 6th Conference on Human Factors & the Web,Austin, TX,06/19/2000,06/19/2000
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
A New Appraisal- Lessons from the History of Efforts to Value Green and High-Performance Home Attributes in the United States
Independent review of inappropriate identification, storage and treatment methods of polychlorinated biphenyl waste streams