Process approach-based methodology for safe maintenance operation: From concepts to SPRIMI software prototype

Maintenance can be considered today as the main enabling system to sustain a target physical item - a workplace, a work equipment or means of transport - in a state in which it can perform the required function. In that way, whatever the sector is, workers carrying out maintenance activities are exposed to various hazards (e.g. chemical, physical, biological or psychosocial) that may be at risk of developing musculoskeletal disorders, diseases, etc. and occupational accidents (e.g. falls through or off something). Indeed maintenance can affect the health and safety not only of the workers directly involved in it, but of other people present in the workplace. To face this maintenance risk issue, risk assessment/management approaches are conventionally conducted by considering human, organisational or technical directions. Nevertheless such approaches are often not enough efficient because too focused on one direction without taking into account all its interactions with the others. Thus this paper presents a generic integrated risk management approach to maintenance which is based on a generic formalisation of maintenance (intervention) business processes/activities but also of their requirements more dedicated to health and safety. Then the approach and its resulting models have been automated on a tool called SPRIMI (software engineering) to be usable for information, support, training and design of safe maintenance system.