Resumen de The consideration of the Human-Machine Interface in the Safety Management System of the process industry
Romualdo Marrazzo, Domenico Barone
The Seveso III Directive 2012/18/EU imposes an obligation to take into due consideration the human factors and the interfaces between operators, processes, and plants, as part of the implementation of the Safety Management System for the process industry. It is fundamental that in the risk analysis the human factor and the conditions in which significant activities for the safety of the establishment must be carried out. The national technical standard UNI 10616:2022 provides guidelines for implementing a safety management system, describing the procedures and technical tools useful for achieving specific objectives for the prevention of major accidents. In the standard, specific attention is paid to the human-machine interface, also considering the prevention and assessment of human error, as fundamental aspects of process safety management. A good, designed man-machine interface, in the control room of a process plant, allows you to minimize the possibility of operator error on the panel, both during normal operating conditions and during emergency situations. The prevention of human error cannot ignore the knowledge of the potential negative consequences deriving from non-compliance with system procedures. The assessment of the possibility of human error must be used in the reliability analysis to verify if the procedures and operational controls adopted to improve the behaviour of the operator or the instrumental controls give the best contribution to the safety of the system. In addition, a fundamental role is represented by training activities and emergency drills, which must be carried out according to a specific path that goes from design to critical analysis of results. In this way it will be possible to prepare any corrective actions, also in terms of response times and emergency management, to reduce the possibility of accidents related to human error. The consideration of the human factors and the interfaces between operators, processes, and plants, in the correct implementation of a safety management system must be based on: detecting any problems at the interfaces thanks to the feedback from both operators and maintenance technicians; monitoring the status of systems, through maintenance activities, and ensuring a good house-keeping; using proper labelling of equipment and alarm annunciators; improving the reliability of operators’ performance; implementing an effective system of operational controls, that allows to prevent any human errors before they can cause accidents; the functionality of the operator/process and operator/equipment interfaces to monitor the process, identify any anomalies or emergency situations and implement the planned intervention procedures.
