title: Pooling knowledge and improving safety for contracted works at a large industrial park.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  At a large chemical park maintenance is contracted by the major companies operating the plants to many small firms. The cultural and psychological isolation of contractor workers was recognized a root cause of severe accidents in the recent years. That problem is common in chemical industry.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The knowledge sharing has been assumed a good key to involve contractors and sub contractors in safety culture and contributing to injuries prevention. The selection of personal protective equipment PPE for the maintenance works has been taken as benchmark to demonstrate the adequateness of the proposed approach.
  
  
  METHODS
  To support plant operators, contractors and subcontractors in PPE discussion, a method has been developed. Its core is a knowledge-base, organized in an Ontology, as suitable for inferring decisions. By means of this tool all stakeholders have merged experience and information and find out the right PPE, to be provided, with adequate training and information package.
  
  
  RESULTS
  PPE selection requires sound competencies about process and environmental hazards, including major accident, preventive and protective measures, maintenance activities. These pieces of knowledge previously fragmented among plant operators and contractors, have to be pooled, and used to find out the adequate PPE for a number of maintenance works.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The PPE selection is per se important, but it is also a good chance to break the contractors' isolation and involve them in safety objectives. Thus by pooling experience and practical knowledge, the common understanding of safety issues has been strengthened.
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Agnello
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ansaldi
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bragatto
mesh_terms: D002617:Chemical Industry; D003284:Contract Services; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D051188:Knowledge Bases; D008283:Maintenance; D016272:Occupational Health; D060051:Occupational Injuries / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011482:Protective Devices; D017751:Safety Management / Q000379:methods*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Personal protection equipment; cognitive ergonomics; ontology