CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 36, 2014 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering www.aidic.it/cet Guest Editors: Valerio Cozzani, Eddy de Rademaeker Copyright © 2014, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., I SBN 978-88-95608-27-3; I SSN 2283-9216 DOI: 10.3303/CET1436100 Please cite this article as: Shirani M., Demichela M., 2014, The qra as design criteria for safety management systems. an application to the food safety, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 36, 595-600 DOI: 10.3303/CET1436100 The QRA as Design Criteria for Safety Management Systems. An Application to the Food Safety Mohsen Shirani*, Micaela Demichela SAfeR, Dipartimento di Scienza Applicata e Tecnologia, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 – 10129 Torino, Italia mohsen.shirani@polito.it The paper shows how the hazard identification and evaluation phase of a Safety Management System (SMS) is the design criteria for the whole SMS, with its procedures. In particular, the selection of risk analysis methods and their results, in terms of frequency of occurrence and consequences magnitude, set up the sizing criteria for the whole SMS. The safety in a process plant relies, among other things, on the adopted managing criteria. They affect all the plant life cycle: from plant design and construction, during the production activity, until its possible dismissing. This clearly applies also to the food process plants. The links between quantitative risk analysis steps and results and SMS procedure are discussed with reference to the food SMS, according to ISO 22000 standard. In conclusion, it is shown how a correct and careful risk analysis is necessary to design and implement a SMS able to pursue the policy’s objectives allowing an effective revision of the policy itself. 1. Introduction Failures in food supply chain can be dangerous and costly. 48 million food borne disease cases in United State annually and 3,000 die (CDC, 2011), that in terms of monetary lost it ranges from $6.5 to $34.9 billion dollar annually. ISO standards on food safety management systems aim to complement local and/or European regulatory requirements and to assist in reducing weak links in the food supply chain, in order to minimize the risks food related and the consequent losses. The paper shows how the hazard identification and evaluation phase of a Food Safety Management System (FSMS) is the design criteria for the whole SMS, with its procedures. In particular, the selection of risk analysis methods and their results, in terms of frequency of occurrence. The links between quantitative risk analysis steps and results and SMS procedure are shown and discussed with reference to the food SMS, according to ISO 22000 standard, “ISO 22000:2005 Food Safety Management Systems-Requirements for any Organization in the Food Chain”. (ISO, 2005). In conclusion, it is shown how a correct and careful risk analysis is necessary to design and implement a SMS able to pursue the policy’s objectives allowing an effective revision of the policy itself. 2. Food Safety and ISO 22000 The large number of food safety incidents in recent years and increasing the risk for public health has resulted in increased requirement for food safety and protection globally. EU regulation in these regards has evolved over the last 20 years in order to meet the growing demand of consumers within food safety. Nevertheless, food safety standards represent significant differences around the world. These standards are in both public level (i.e. Codex Alignments, regional countries, and individual nations) and private level (firms and supply chain demands and customers requirement), which both have different level of protections (Figure 1). The confusion resulting from the proliferation of standards led the ISO to design a food safety management system (FSMS) standard aimed at harmonizing those already existing designing the ISO 595