**3.3 Assessing the MIA prevention in the conditions of Slovakia and shortages detected**

There are several problems that create a space for the scientific and research activity in the area of the MIA prevention. The improvement of the safety level of the SEVESO establishments in Slovakia by creating a complex model of the risk assessment of the industrial processes using the quantitative methods, with its harmonisation with the EU standards and subsequent implementation in the Slovak conditions has been the basic aim of the scientific and research activity at the FSE UNIZA during the recent years.

*Risk Management in the Area of Major Industrial Accident Prevention in the EU… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98406*

Based on the currently valid documents and approaches that are utilised in practice the risk management can be divided into two basic phases as follows:


These both phases of the risk management are in the mutual interaction. From the point of view of the sequence the risk assessment has to be realised first, then it is necessary to reduce the unacceptable risks and subsequently to monitor the reduced risks and all of that represents their treatment/management.

The risk assessment can be characterised as a systematic activity of an individual or a group of people (experts) whose main goal is to state the acceptability or unacceptability of the risks on the basis of criteria defined in advance. From the functional viewpoint we divide the risk assessment process to two phases:


The preparatory phase of the risk assessment has a character of realising the decisions and preparatory activities connected with this phase whose selected outputs are connected with the individual steps of the realisation phase of the risk assessment. The realisation phase of the risk assessment is an implementation activity into which the data from the preparatory phase enter and then we implement the selected procedures, methods and techniques in the individual steps by the working group (evaluators) for assessing the risks of a particular process. A list of the acceptable and unacceptable risks that are subsequently reduced and as the residual risks they enter the process of monitoring the risk is created. Every phase has its steps that are logically interconnected. The **Figure 2** depicts the whole risk assessment process.

The quality of the preparatory phase is closely connected with the quality of the outputs that are obtained at the end of the realisation phase. It depends especially on the professionalism and assumptions of the human factor (working group) that participates both in making decisions in individual phases or steps and realising the analysis itself (expert evaluation) of the given system. The human factor is also connected with the rate of uncertainty that enters the process and can affect the analysis results and cause deviations. The highest rate of uncertainty influences the results in the risk assessment phase due to the calculations that are part of the implemented methods. These deviations are connected with the rate of knowledge of the evaluators and the information that is available at the time of the analysis.

The complex model was one of the main outputs of the FSE UNIZA's research activity. It was created on the basis of several sequential steps using methods, approaches and tools from other projects solved at our faculty. During its creation it was necessary to define the main risk management phases of the complex model (the risk assessment and management) and then to determine the individual steps. The solution process was aimed at the risk assessment phase that was then analysed and developed. The existing systematic procedures, methods and techniques for the risk assessment in the industrial environment of the Slovak Republic and worldwide were evaluated for the necessary identification, analysis and assessment of the risk.

Based on several assessment criteria we chose some parts and calculations of the systematic approach ARAMIS, QRA method, Boolean algebra, failure tree, event tree, etc. We utilised also the results of the tasks solved in the project framework for defining the input and output parameters of the model:

**Figure 2.** *Basic phases and steps of the risk assessment.*


We selected the methods and calculation mechanisms that were then implemented in the model. The project team's key procedure was the ARAMIS method that consists of two key methods – the Methodology for the Identification of Major Accident Hazards (MIMA) that identifies the risk sources of the major accidents and defines the highest risk potential of the equipment. The second method is called the Methodology for the Identification of Reference Accident Scenarios (MIRAS) that is a methodology for identifying the safety measures and procedures for scenarios identified by MIMAH.

The output of the whole analysis is the determination of the risk, designing suitable measures followed by an investment or organisational aim in the area of improving the operation safety.
