Discuss about the Catastrophe Management in Engineering Systems.
The report is presented to discuss the major risks that are associated with the huge catastrophic explosion that occurred at Tianjin port in China in the year 2015. As the topic focuses on the ways of managing risks, so the principles of risk management are considered here as effective for controlling the risks and mitigate those too with ease and effectiveness. The risks will be assessed here along with the mitigation plan with the inclusion of a cost benefit analysis for controlling the risks with ease and effectiveness. The topic will also discuss the risk analysis techniques and a suitable plan for monitoring the performances of business after the explosion occurred (Meyer & Reniers, 2016). Various processes are used to analyse the strategic issues, and suitable research methods such as risk assessment procedure shall be applied as a decision making tool. Lastly, the personal reflection will be presented too to discuss the outcomes that have been achieved with the help of risk management.
The explosions caused financial, HR, legal and environmental issues that created an impact on the engineering activities at the port by stopping those and even harmed the safety and efficiency of the environmental management systems (Park et al., 2013).
Due to the explosion caused at the Tianjin port, nearly 200 people faced severe death, and many were left injured. The explosion was so devastating that it destroyed many buildings, infrastructures, organisations that were present there and even the cars parked in that area. The dormitories were also destroyed that not only made many shop owners face loss but also created shockwaves that were felt like earthquakes in the nearby areas. There was loss of property worth nearly $2.5 to $3.5 billion (Glendon, Clarke & McKenna, 2016).
It is certain that explosions like this can affect the environment negatively too. The port area stored numerous storage containers holding chemicals and hazardous substances that exploded and caused harmful gases to spread everywhere. As soon as the fire spread, fire fighters put water which got mixed with the chemicals like calcium carbide and released poisonous gases like acetylene, carbon monoxide and other harmful pollutants that damaged the ecological balance in nature. The nearby plants, trees were the subject of destruction due to the fire and the flames, gases further degraded the environmental condition and polluted everywhere (Aven, 2012). This made it difficult for people to breathe fresh air and even toxic gases deteriorated the environment conditions.
Human resources mean the employees who used to work in the port area and this can help in enhancing the productivity level and make the organizations gain good profit in business. Not only the explosion took the lives of many people, but also created difficulties for the workers to perform to their potential. There were state officials too who were there to discuss the safety standards and the explosion resulted in their deaths as well. The warehouse at Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics was one of the major companies present there and many of the workers there also died. The firefighters who came to the rescue, few of them also found dead afterwards (Colicchia & Strozzi, 2012).
The legal issues were that the safety standards were not maintained and among the 15000 storage containers holding the chemicals and hazardous substances, only a few of those were checked, and the remaining were left unchecked. It was even ignored that the packaging was not done properly, according to the organizational standards, which could also be the cause of such explosion. Due to the lack of safety standards, proper measures were not taken, which created legal issues afterwards for Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics. The explosions went viral on social media and this mad the Government manage legal procedures for overcoming this kind of issue faced by Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics (Ghadge, Dani & Kalawsky, 2012).
Though there were no proper evidence regarding the cause of such explosion, still it could be predicted that the explosion of 800 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had caused due to the overheating of storage container holding dry nitrocellulose. It was also found that the quantity or volume of hazardous substances and chemicals were over the permissible limit, which caused the explosion and destructed the warehouse of Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics. Among the vast numbers of storage containers, only a few were checked which further increased the risks of explosion (Diabat, Govindan & Panicker, 2012). There were many casualties and even the health care organizations became overcrowded because of so many patients.
The goals and objectives are to monitor the entire situation and develop risk mitigation procedures by creating a stable position again. Based on the SMART objectives, Specific objective is to identify the risks and measure the level of its effect from the financial, legal and environmental perspective. The objective, which can be measured, is to create an effective communication plan and the achievable objective has been related to the focusing on monitoring the performances of business in the area after the explosion. The relevant objective is identifying the effects caused by the explosion whereas the time-bound objectives are to resolve the risks within quick time and develop supply chain strategic management system to find solutions to the risks and issues conveniently (Mabrouki, Bentaleb & Mousrij, 2014).
The supply chains of Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics located at the port were destroyed, which created lots of financial, HR, legal and environmental issues too. The Port facilities must manage proper compliance with the organisational standards and even follow the legislation, acts, rules and regulations properly. According to the rules and regulations, the permission for storing 10 tonnes of chemicals is applicable, and any more than that is over the actual allowable quantity (Wieland & Marcus Wallenburg, 2012).
The supply chain strategic risk management tool can be applied to maintain proper health and safety standards for avoiding such kinds of explosions again and ensure early prediction of such kinds of risks. Continuous assessment and monitoring of the supply chains at Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics should be done for allowing proper strategic implementation, risk management procedures and reduce chances of vulnerabilities through the implementation of effective strategies. By analysing the issues, it is important for the Port facilities located in Tianjin to make sure that the chemicals that are stored in the storage containers do not exceed the quantity that has been permissible. This kind of tool also acts as a decision making to identify the daily and exceptional risks and supply chains through proper risk assessment (Serpella et al., 2014). This would help in reducing the chances of vulnerability and ensure continuation of services at the port soon. The contingency plan is developed with the implementation of a supply chain risk management procedure with the use of latest technologies for mitigating the catastrophic incidents and ensures that the safety standards are maintained properly. Among the numerous storage containers, only few were checked, which contained hazardous chemicals and the remaining that were not checked might be the cause of such explosion at Tianjin port in China (Bahr, 2014).
The risk communication plan is another process to analyse the strategic issues, evaluate the effects of such kinds of risks including the discontinuation of trade related services and fulfill the duties of regulatory compliance for protecting the people and the port area from any kinds of risks arising from the explosion at Tianjin port. The risk communication plan is promoted by Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics through delivery of training sessions to the workers for making them informed about the safety rules and organizational standards that should be maintained. Another effective process is the business impact analysis or BIA that could identify the resources required for mitigating the risks and prevent any damages to the property, people and the environment (Nickel et al., 2012).
The risk assessment technique is an useful decision making tool, because it can help in adhering to the needs of segregation for the hazardous substances. The risk assessment procedure has identified the risks and allowed the International Maritime Organization to provide guidelines for maintaining safety standards. The risk assessment has even identified the financial issues related to the claims for insurance money by many companies and individuals. This facilitated the processes of review and assessment of various aspects of the insurance policies and managed coverage for the property or number of lives that were lost during the accident. The risk assessment could mitigate the impacts of these issues on the business operations and finance of Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics by making a list of all the resources related to global connections (Meyer & Reniers, 2016). By obtaining information about the issues and its impacts, it would be easy to develop alternative sourcing, storage, transportation and distribution to ensure that the condition of the port is retained.
Though the risk assessment technique has several benefits, there are few drawbacks and limitations as well including lack of ability to predict the incident at earlier stages. All the storage containers should have been checked because these contained hazardous chemicals and substances that were needed to be checked before delivery. Due to the lack of knowledge, skills and expertise among the port workers, the risks might not be assessed properly, further could lead to other negative impacts on the functioning of Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics as well (Park et al., 2013).
From the report, I have obtained all the necessary information about how risks are managed during such catastrophic incidents. I have obtained knowledge about the different types of risks that have arisen along with the SMART objectives that are needed to be achieved. I think that Chinese laws, rules and regulations must make it mandatory regarding the location of the storage facilities at 1000 meters away from the places where people live. The rules were violated, and even all the containers had not been checked properly, which had resulted in managing risk assessment techniques for identifying the risks and mitigate those. The supply chain risk management technique was utilized to analyse the supply chains and its associated risks resulting from the explosion at Tianjin port (Aven, 2012). I believe that regulatory compliance obligations must be assessed to manage improvements in protective measures, deliver emergency responses and even plan for effective training activities to keep the workers in that area well informed about ways of maintaining safety. The business impact analysis has been considered by me as effective to manage the assessment of critical activities and enable active monitoring to improve the supply chain activities. According to me, these ways or approaches undertaken could develop contingency plans and resolve the issues that were faced during a critical situation, which is beyond control (Colicchia & Strozzi, 2012).
Conclusion
The report was prepared for assessing the different types of risks that had created negative impacts on the engineering activities at Tianjin port, China. Few issues included destruction of many buildings, cars, creating negative effect on the environment, not complying with the Chinese rules and regulations, etc. To measure and monitor the performance, it was needed to maintain a limited amount of chemicals stored in the containers and accomplish the SMART objectives too. The objectives were to identify the risks, assess those, determine its effects, create an effective mitigation or contingency plan and develop supply chain strategic management system for handling these risks Tianjin Dongjiang Port Ruihai International Logistics in Tianjin port. The risk communication plan had been effective for ensuring that the regulatory mechanisms complied with the safety standards while the business impact analysis or BIA had prevented the issues and prevented damage to property and loss of lives.
References
Aven, T. (2012). Foundational issues in risk assessment and risk management. Risk Analysis, 32(10), 1647-1656.
Bahr, N. J. (2014). System safety engineering and risk assessment: a practical approach. CRC Press.
Colicchia, C., & Strozzi, F. (2012). Supply chain risk management: a new methodology for a systematic literature review. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, 17(4), 403-418.
Diabat, A., Govindan, K., & Panicker, V. V. (2012). Supply chain risk management and its mitigation in a food industry. International Journal of Production Research, 50(11), 3039-3050.
Ghadge, A., Dani, S., & Kalawsky, R. (2012). Supply chain risk management: present and future scope. The International Journal of Logistics Management, 23(3), 313-339.
Glendon, A. I., Clarke, S., & McKenna, E. (2016). Human safety and risk management. Crc Press.
Mabrouki, C., Bentaleb, F., & Mousrij, A. (2014). A decision support methodology for risk management within a port terminal. Safety Science, 63, 124-132.
Meyer, T., & Reniers, G. (2016). Engineering risk management. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Nickel, S., Saldanha-da-Gama, F., & Ziegler, H. P. (2012). A multi-stage stochastic supply network design problem with financial decisions and risk management. Omega, 40(5), 511-524.
Park, J., Seager, T. P., Rao, P. S. C., Convertino, M., & Linkov, I. (2013). Integrating risk and resilience approaches to catastrophe management in engineering systems. Risk Analysis, 33(3), 356-367.
Serpella, A. F., Ferrada, X., Howard, R., & Rubio, L. (2014). Risk management in construction projects: a knowledge-based approach. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 119, 653-662.
Wieland, A., & Marcus Wallenburg, C. (2012). Dealing with supply chain risks: Linking risk management practices and strategies to performance. International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, 42(10), 887-905.
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