Evaluation and Comparison of Health, Safety and Environmental Management System in Oil and Petrochemical Downstream Industries (Case Study of Textile Factories)

The oil and petrochemical industries had been amongst the first industries which developed the HSE-MS. This system aims to maintain and protect human resources along with reducing the environmental impact of the industry. Although it has been mulling over this system in a plethora of studies, unfortunately, most of the assessments have been carried out in a qualitative manner. In recent years, the evaluation of the performance of HSE-MS has been limited due to the lack of appropriate quantitative evaluations.

In the present study, the development of criteria and sub-criteria of health, safety and environment management system was investigated using a different approach. Using the opinion of experts and according to the performed categories, a questionnaire was developed to determine the pairwise comparisons. Decision making trial and evaluation (DEMATEL) technique was used to determine the relationships between the criteria and network analysis method was used to determine their importance weight. the developed methodology was then evaluated and compared between two factories in a case study.

The performance evaluation showed that the leadership and commitment criterion with a final score of 1.8; Risk assessment and management with a final score of 0.8; Planning criterion with a final score of .0.40; Policy criterion with final score of 0.33, Organization, resources, and documentation with a final score of 0.31, implementation and follow-up with a final score of 0.22, and Evaluation and Review criterion with a final score of 0.12 were ranked from the first to the seventh, respectively.

The results of the study demonstrated that the most important criterion for health, safety and the environment is leadership. The significant difference between the final score of the leadership criterion and the other criteria reflects its crucial importance in HSE-MS performance evaluation. Participation of employees, allocation of appropriate funding and support of innovativeness are factors to be implemented in order to improve HSE-MS program as a better and successful management.