Development of a stratified BWM and TOPSIS-based approach for risk analysis of manufacturing facilities and an application in the industry

For a sustainable production and economy, occupational health and safety (OHS) principles are applied within the framework of standards, as well as suitable machinery, equipment and workforce in workplaces. This is why occupational risk assessment (ORA) is important for manufacturing industries. When deciding on the prioritization of risks in ORA, adding to the analysis how the parameters defining the risk may change in different possible states positively affects the robustness of the decision-making. Therefore, the primary motivation of this study is to propose an ORA approach that can address future changes in the importance levels of risk parameters and minimize the uncertainties in the risk assessment process. The concept of stratification with the best-worst method (BWM) is used to determine importance weights of the risk parameters in the ORA. In addition, the Bayesian version of BWM is used to consider more than one decision-making expert's evaluations to reduce loss of information. In a nutshell, a calculation procedure based on stratified Bayesian BWM (SBBWM) is followed. Combining both Bayesian BWM and stratification philosophy has not yet been studied in the literature. In the study, the priority scores of each hazard are determined by the TOPSIS Sort method, a sorting-based MCDM method that works according to the logic of proximity to the ideal solution. Thus, while determining each hazard's priority score and order, the class of this risk has also been determined. The proposed approach was applied to evaluate thirty-six risks encountered in a flour production process's manufacturing, storage, handling, and laboratory processes. Control measures to be taken for each risk were also determined. Methodologically, various scenario analyzes and sensitivity studies were conducted to reveal how the results changed in different conditions. The proposed approach provides a more comprehensive procedure for production facilities than traditional methods and covers the deficiencies of traditional methods, which is beneficial in this respect.