Ahmed Badreddine

A new approach to construct optimal bow tie diagrams for risk analysis

Bow tie diagrams have become popular methods in risk analysis and safety management. This tool describes graphically, in the same scheme, the whole scenario of an identified risk and its respective preventive and protective barriers. The major problem with bow tie diagrams is that they remain limited by their technical level and by their restriction to the graphical representation of different scenarios without any consideration to the dynamic aspect of real systems. This paper overcomes this weakness by proposing a new Bayesian approach to construct bow ties from real data.

A new model to implement Six Sigma in small- and medium-sized enterprises

Abstract The Six Sigma approach improves the quality of products in order to ensure customers’ satisfaction. This approach has yielded to interesting results for large enterprises. However, its implementation remains difficult for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME). In fact, the use of the same tools is insufficient to achieve the objectives when considering financial constraints and the lack of data. The regular tools are complex for SMEs which require an adapted model to implement the approach successfully. In this paper, we propose a new model having the objective to facilitate the integration of Six Sigma in SMEs by avoiding the use of Black Belts, optimising the implementation costs and period, simplifying the Six Sigma structure and enhancing the communication between staff and managers. The model includes two imbricated loops: the first offers immediate improvement actions by estimating the capability and the stability of the process, while the second provides profound improvement actions using the fuzzy logic system and the analytic hierarchical process (AHP) method. An example illustrates the application of the proposed model in an SME.

A dynamic barriers implementation in Bayesian-based bow tie diagrams for risk analysis

Bow tie diagrams have become popular methods in risk analysis and safety management. This tool describes graphically, in the same scheme, the whole scenario of an identified risk and its respective preventive and protective barriers. The major problem with bow tie diagrams is that they remain limited by their technical level and by their restriction to a graphical representation of different scenario without any consideration to the dynamic aspect of real systems. Recently we have proposed a new Bayesian approach to construct bow tie diagrams for risk analysis [1]. This approach learns the bow tie structure from real data and improves them by adding a new numerical component allowing us to model in a more realistic manner the system behavior. In this paper we propose to extend this approach by adding the barriers implementation in order to construct the whole bow ties. To this end we will use the numerical component, previously defined in the learning phase, and the analytic hierarchical process (AHP).

A multi-objective risk management approach to implement an integrated management system: Quality, security, environment

This paper proposes a partial implementation of an integrated Quality, Security and Environment management system [1] to deal with the definition of an appropriate global management plan. This implementation is based on the multi-objective influence diagrams [12] which are one of the most commonly used graphical decision models for reasoning under uncertainty with multiple objectives.

A Multi-Objective Approach to Generate an Optimal Management Plan in an IMS-QSE

Recently, we have proposed a new process-based approach to implement an integrated management system grouping Quality, Security and Environment (QSE) avoiding weaknesses of parallel implementations. Our approach is based on three phases i.e. Plan, Do and Check and Act. This paper proposes an implementation of the most important part of the plan phase, consisting in the definition of an appropriate QSE management plan. The principle of this implementation is the transformation of already existing bow ties into a multi-objective influence diagram (MID) which is one of the most commonly used graphical decision models for reasoning under uncertainty. More precisely, we propose to map existing bow ties which are a very popular and diffused risks analysis tool into a MID, then to evaluate it in order to generate an optimal management plan.

A Three Stages to Implement Barriers in Bayesian-Based Bow Tie Diagram

The preventive and protective barriers in Bow tie diagrams are often defined by experts that ignore the real aspect of the system. Thus implementing barriers in Bow tie diagrams in automatic way remains a real challenge. This paper proposes a new approach to implement preventive and protective barriers. This approach is based on the multi-objective influence diagrams which are a graphical model to solve decision problems with multiple objectives.

A Multi-leveled ANP-LCA Model for the Selection of Sustainable Design Options

The aim of this paper is to propose a new model for the selection of sustainable design options. This model is based on the environmental, the economic, and the social life cycle assessments. It deals with the uncertainties and the imprecisions due to the technological choices and their potential impacts since early design phase of the product. The proposed model is based on four principles, namely: Early integration, life cycle thinking, functionality thinking, and the multi-criteria concept. A case study is presented to validate the applicability of the proposed model on the design of batteries.

A New Model to Implement a SWOT Fuzzy ANP

SWOT (i.e. Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is considered as an important tool to conduct a strategic planning process by providing an internal and an external context analysis. However, these analyzes are based on the brainstorming of decision makers which may lead to subjectivity problems. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a new SWOT analysis model based on the fuzzy analytic network process (ANP) that deals with the subjectivity shortcoming.