Risk Assessment in Projects of Shipbuilding, Ship Repairing and Ship Conversion

Transcription

1 Risk Assessment in Projects of Shipbuilding, Ship Repairing and Ship Conversion Hugo Miguel Martins Pais Centre for Marine Technology and Engineering (CENTEC), Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal ABSTRACT: It s intended to create a risk management model concerning an evaluation that may be applied to construction projects, repairs and naval conversion. For it s not ordinary in the industrial area and especially in the naval area, the risk assessment is done through risk factors, having so little scientific literature that may support this approach. The model presented here is an iterative process that should be done through the entire project s life cycle and that abridges the sustainability factors of the project. That are, time, cost and quality. As many other risk evaluation processes concerning other non-naval areas, this model identifies, evaluates and treats the project s risks, but furthermore considers the risk factors of the project during its evaluation. The risk approach through risk factors allows a more delicate risk pre-selection, improving the evaluation method and making the risk management process more efficient. The developed model was applied to a ship building project of a fluvial ferry for transportation of people and vehicles. The number of identified risks doesn t not allow to present them all in this article, so it was intended to give some examples of the processed risks. Keywords: Risk, Risk Management Process, Risk Factor, Risk Identification, Qualitative Assessment, Quantitative Assessment, Risk Treatment, Naval Engineering, Sustainability, Time, Cost, Quality. 1. INTRODUCTION It s intended to develop a methodology to assess a project in the point of view of their risks in the way of decrease the probability of the occurrence of these events or, in the case of occurrence, to define treatment strategies that make these risks affect the project as little as possible. The developed model must have applicability in naval engineering projects, namely projects of shipbuilding, ship repairing and ship conversion, so it will be applied to a ship building project. There are very different ways to define risks, but we can define it as the combination of the probability of an event and its consequence [1]. There are no projects without risks, but they can affect the project s objectives in different ways, namely in his sustainability. There are risks that affect the project positively, called Opportunities, but there are others that affect the project negatively, called Threats. These last are the ones we pretend to assess, because they are the most common risks in projects. The model developed is iterative and is composed by four sub-processes: risk identification, risk 1 assessment, risk treatment and risk monitoring. In this work it will be done an explanation of these subprocesses, as well as its surroundings. The risk management process presented here is centered in risk factors assessment. This procedure is not very common, and is little the literature that addresses this matter. However, it s possible that this procedure bring some benefits, namely in the selection of the most critical risks. The model was applied to a shipbuilding case. The vessel used is a fluvial ferry for transportation of people and vehicles. Starting with the construction contract and the descriptive memory act, it will be made the first iteration of the model, but just considering the conception period of the project s life cycle. Risks that may appear in other phases were not assessed. The sub-process of risk monitoring was not applied, because the construction was not made. The International Standard Organization (ISO) defines some standards of risk management to be applied in projects, they are ISO31000 [2]. These standards provide guidelines to the identification,

2 assessment and treatment of risks, the standard use in this study was the 2009 s edition. Out of the sphere of the naval engineering, there are some risk management models, defined by entities that applies this own methods to assess risks. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has defined, in 2007, its own guidelines [3], as made by the Department of Energy of the United States of America in 2008 [4]. More than methods for the risk management, they provide templates to be used by their teams. In the literature there are some works that analyze the risks with a suitable detail, in this study, the work of Chapman and Ward [5] and the PMBOK Guide [6], by Project Management Institute were consulted. 2. THE RISK MANAGEMENT MODEL AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO A SHIPBUILDING PROJECT 2.1. THE SHIP The risk management model was applied to a shipbuilding project of a hypothetical ship. This ship is a fluvial ferry and the objective is to transport people and vehicles between the margins of a river. The construction contract and the descriptive memory act of the ship were used as bases for the application of the method. All the risks processed were presented in those documents. The ship must be built using the good practices of the shipbuilding and be followed by the rules and regulamentation with respect of stability, safety, navigability and maneuverability. The main characteristics of the ship are: Maximum length over all 50m Maximum Draft 1.90m Seated Passengers 350 Vehicles 35 Crew 4 Service Velocity 11 knots Fuel Autonomy 360 hours 2.2. RISK MANAGEMENT PROCESS In general the risk management is made using the experiences of the past combined with a reasonable judgment of the situation, rarely is used a methodology exclusively created to deal with risks. But depending on the importance and complexity of the project, the use of the experience or a reasonable judgment may not be sufficient. Here appears the necessity of a risk management process. The Project Management Institute [6] defines a risk as an uncertain event, which if occurs has positive or negative effect on project objectives. So, risks can be of two different types, they can be positive risks, that bring benefits to the project called Opportunities, or they can be negative, called Threats, that can cause damages to the sustainability of the project. These last are those that will be studied in this work. The Risks called threats are characterized by two main dimensions: the impact and the probability of occurrence. The impact is the damage that the occurrence of the risk makes in the project, the probability of occurrence is the possibility of the risk materializes. This two dimensions act directly in the sustainability of the project, so they will be one of the bases of the risk assessment PROJECT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT The Project Management Institute [6] defines project as a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result. So there are three types of different projects: the creation of a product (the one that we are interested in this study), the execution of a service, and obtaining a result. PMI says that a project is temporary because it has a well defined period of life, with a beginning and an end, described by project s life cycle. Chapman and Ward [5] proposed a typical project s life cycle, composed only by four main stages: Conception, Planning, Execution and Conclusion. In the case of a ship, these stages are integrated in the ship s life cycle (Conception, Planning, Execution, Operation, Repair and Scrapping). In the risk management process, the stages of Conception and Planning of the project s life cycle are the most important, because the majority of the risks must be identified, assessed and treated during these stages. During this two stages should be undertaken the first and more important iteration of the process. The intensity of the risk management process tends to decrease in the others stages of the project life cycle. 2

3 Fig 1 - Intensity of the Risk Management Process vs Project Life Cycle The project management is defined by PMI as the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements. Project management is accomplished through the application and integration of the project management processes of initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THE PROJECT AND THE RISK MANAGEMENT There are three factors in the sustainability of projects: Time, Cost and Quality. They can have the same importance to the sustainability or not, it depends on the industry but here we will consider that they are equal in importance. Depending on the risk, it can affect just one of these factors; however, all the factors will be affected by the occurrence of the risk. It means that Time, Cost and Quality haves a relationship. This relationship can be exposed as a sustainability triangle. Fig 2 - Sustainability Triangle The risk treatment is applied into these factors, because is in Time, Cost and Quality that we want to avoid problems. The impact of the occurrence of a risk is studied during the risk evaluation sub-processes; an easy approach is to use risk factors RISK MANAGEMENT TEAMS The risk management depends on the team that applies the process. Experienced, cohesive and proactive teams make the process easier and turn better the efficiency of the process. The team need to be defined when the risk management plan is defined and the project s team must be part of it, because they are the elements that have a better knowledge about it. The constitution of a specialized team in the process has some advantages, namely when there are no culture of risk management. The incorporation of external experts in the risk management team, mostly in projects with high complexity occurs several times. All the stakeholders may take part of the team too, or, at least, should be taken into account. This incorporation minimizes the external risks of the project RISK IDENTIFICATION The risk identification sub-process is one of the most important tasks in risk management. The methods involved in the identification must be applied exhaustively, with responsibility to ensure that all the possible risks are identified. A risk identification performed poorly can make all the process fail, because the identification is the base for the risk evaluation and risk treatment. There are a few methods that can be used in the risk identification sub-processes, the most important are [7]: - Analysis of Documents; - Techniques for Collecting Information; - Analysis of Historical Data; - Analysis of assumptions; - Diagram Techniques; - SWOT Analysis; - Specialized Analysis. In the application of the model to the ship, they were used four methodologies. As the start point of the study was the construction contract and the descriptive memory act, the analysis of documents was a very useful tool in the process, allowing the identification of the risks present in those documents. The techniques for collecting information were used too, due to clarify some risks not so obvious in the documents. Specialized analysis was performed to go deeper in the existing information. Last but not least, the diagram 3

4 techniques, namely the use of the fault trees diagrams provided some precious information in the identification of risk factors. Fault trees are an inductive methodology to determine the potential causes of accidents, fail of systems in general and to determine the failure probability [8]. In this case they were used to determine the risk factors of each risk USE OF A RISK BREAKDOWN STRUCTURE (RBS) The identified risks need to be organized in a way that turns possible to understand the relationship between them, the common sources and the stages of the project s life cycle in which they appear. It is not sufficient to create a list of identified risks, it's necessary to develop an organizational methodology that makes it easier to access the risks and that allows a quick and complete transmission of information. Hillson [9], suggests that the creation of a RBS must take in to account the project development and the specific risk sources of the sector or industry. For that, there is in the literature a few generic RBS that can be used as a start point to create a specific RBS for the project. The higher levels of a RBS are normally called as Risk Categories. These categories are used to group families of risks that are separated by lower levels, but still having the same risk category. In the application of the model to a shipbuilding project, the RBS created and used in all the risk management process is: 1. Project 1.1. Schedule 1.2. Tactics 1.3. Tasks 1.4. Costs 2. Ship owner 2.1. Funds 2.2. Scope 2.3. Objectives 3. Extern 3.1. Politics 3.2. Legislation 3.3. Environment 3.4. Market 3.5. Culture 3.6. Stakeholders 4. Internal 4.1. Infrastructure 4.2. Human Resources 4.3. Management 4.4. Organic structure 4.5. Safety The RBS is composed by four risk categories: Project, Ship owner, Internal and External Risks. However, as all the information available was the construction contract and the descriptive memory act, it wasn t possible to fill all the risk categories RISK REGISTER After the identification of risks and the allocation of the RBS the risks should be registered in a document that works like a data base. This document is called Risk Register and it is the final documentation in the risk identification sub-process. This document collects all the risks, in a common format, with all the information found. In general in a risk register, it should be present information about, at least, the RBS, a description of the risk, the risk factors, the risk category and the factor of the sustainability that suffers the major impact of the occurrence of the risk. The addition of more information about the risks is favorable to the risk identification sub-process. The process of risk management is iterative, so the risk register is updated throughout the project. They were found 28 different risks in the risk identification sub-process undertaken to the case of the shipbuilding project. However, it was decided to show only 5 risks, due to the space occupied in this article. 4

5 RBS Risk Risk Factor The ship must have capacity for 350 persons. 2% Less : Ship Rejected. The ship must have capacity for 35 Vehicles. Less than 31: Ship Rejected. The ship must produce a low wash in all velocities Maximum draft of 1.9m in load condition Fuel Autonomy for 360 hours The previous table shows the risk register of 5 risks founded during the risk identification sub-process for the shipbuilding contract. As said previously, the risk factors were founded using fault trees RISK EVALUATION The scope of the risk evaluation is to apply techniques that allow a better understanding of the impact and the probability of occurrence of a risk. With these methods, it s intended that the assessment is not performed only by the experience but also by promoting studies that turns the projects more efficient. When changes in the goals of the projects occur, the risk evaluation must be redone, to verify if it s necessary to promote changes in the assessments already done. The risk register must be checked to ensure that there are no unidentified risks The risk assessment was done in two parts, a qualitative evaluation and a quantitative evaluation. In the first one, the impact and the probability of occurrence are assessed in a quantitative way. In the second part the consequences of the occurrence of a risk, and the respective probability are computed. The objective of this separation on the risk evaluation is to find the most critical risks and just assess these ones in a quantitative way QUALITATIVE EVALUATION The qualitative evaluation is the first step in the risk evaluation sub-process. It s not intended in this part to find precise values of the impact and the probability of occurrence, but, using qualitative - Architecture of the space for passengers poorly designed. - Architecture of the space for vehicles poorly designed. - Aft hull forms poorly designed; - Inappropriate Propeller. - Weight evaluation fail; - Hull forms poorly designed. - Poor analysis of the fuel consumption curves; - Fuel tank capacity insufficient. Tab 1 - Risk Register 5 Risk Category Project Project Ship Owner Ship Owner Ship Owner Sustainability Impact Time Time Cost/Time Quality Time methods, to measure the risks and find the more important ones to be evaluated quantitatively. The qualitative evaluation is composed by three different steps: the evaluation of risk factors, the P-I Score and the plot of the risk in a risk matrix. Within the qualitative evaluation the risks considered not critical will not proceed to the next steps, but they will be documented to be treated in the next subprocess RISK FACTORS EVALUATION The risk factors, found in the risk identification subprocess using fault trees, act directly in the project, being a threat to the sustainability. So it makes sense to evaluate them according to their severity to the sustainability of the project. It s important to note that a risk factor can be present in more than one risk within the same project. This fact makes that risk factors present in more than one risk need to be evaluated according with that condition. The evaluation starts with the construction of a table containing the risk factors and the number of times that each one appears in the risk register. Then, each risk factor must be evaluated in the sustainability: Time, Cost and Quality. For that we can use levels of risk [10], a qualitative scale shown on Tab 2. Level of Risk Insignificant 0 Low 1 Medium 2 High 3 Tab 2 - Level of Risk for risk factors evaluation

6 To compute the final impact of a given risk factor, it can be used the following formula: = Where: I is the Impact caused by the risk factor; NR is the number of repetition of that risk factor in the risk register; T is the Time; C is the Cost; Q is the Quality. After the computation of all impacts it must be done a ranking of risk factors. It should be decided a criteria to define the risks that should pass to the P-I Score calculations and the ones that should be documented. In the application made in this study, it was decided that only the risks corresponding to the 50% risk factors that cause more impact should pass to P-I Score computation. The evaluation of the risk factor of the five risks used here is show in Tab 3. Risk Level Risk Factor NR T C Q Impact Architecture of the space for passengers poorly designed. Architecture of the space for vehicles poorly designed Inappropriate propeller Hull forms poorly designed Poor analysis of the fuel consumption curves Fuel tank capacity insufficient Aft hull forms poorly designed Weight evaluation fail Tab 3 - Evaluation of risk factors The risk factors shaded in grey stayed in the 50% more important risk factors, so the risks that proceed in evaluation are: 2.1.5, and The risks and must be documented to a future treatment P-I SCORE The next step in the qualitative evaluation is the P-I Score [7]. This computation will allow proceeding to the plot of the risks in a risk matrix, so it s a very important computation that must be done with accuracy. The evaluation must be done using qualitative values and when the complexity of the project justifies it, external experts can be called to evaluate the risks. The formula to compute the P-I Score is: = 2 Where: GR is the P-I Score; I is the impact. Po is the probability of occurrence. As exposed in Equation 2, the P-I Score use qualitative values of probability of occurrence and the impact. The value for these two dimensions must be assigned using a grading scale, which must be the same for all the risks. The proposed scales [7], for the impact and probability of occurrence are: Impact Insignificant 1 Low 2 Moderate 3 High 4 Catastrophic 5 Tab 4 - Qualitative values for Impact Probability of Occurrence Very Low 1 Low 2 Moderate 3 High 4 Very High 5 Tab 5 - Qualitative values for probability of occurrence For the shipbuilding project used as example, some experts were contacted to evaluate risks. They are members of the project team of the major shipyards in Portugal, Estaleiros Navais de Viana do Castelo and Arsenal do Alfeite, and Francisco Gomes Lopes, professor in the Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering Department at IST. The average results of the risks still under evaluation are shown in Tab 6. RBS Average Average Prob. P-I Impact of Occurrence Score Tab 6 - P-I Score 6

7 RISK MATRIX The creation of the risk matrix is the last step in the qualitative evaluation and complements the P-I Score computations. This matrix has as inputs the probability of occurrence and the impact of the risks and it has as output the P-I Score [3]. The advantage of the creation of this matrix is that it allows to plot the risks in a colored grid to quickly verify their severity and allowing an anticipation of the type of treatment that the risk may have. The dimension of the matrix has to be the same of the qualitative values used in P-I score. In some cases, the creation of the risk matrix concludes the risk evaluation process. It occurs because the simplicity of the project allows it, or because there are no sufficient data to undertake quantitative analyses. The risk matrix developed to the qualitative values used in the P-I Score is: PROBABILITY OF OCCURRENCE IMPACT Tab 7 - Risk Matrix The risks that pass to the quantitative evaluation are those risk marked in color red and orange; the others must be documented to a future treatment. The risks still in evaluation in the example have the following mapping in the risk matrix: consequences of the occurrence of a risk and compute the probability of those consequences. It is a different type of assessment that just must be undertaken when it exist sufficient data about the risks. It is better not to do a quantitative evaluation when there are no sufficient data about the risks because it can introduce some errors in the process that can damage the entire project. The classical approach to find the consequences of a risk is creating event trees and the use of simulations or historical data to find the probability of those consequences. The creation of event trees is a quantitative methodology that allows doing an inductive analysis. Starting with an initial event, the method develops all the sequences of events that result of the assumption of the fail or success of the previous event [8]. In this way, it is possible to find the consequences of the initial event that is the occurrence of a risk. The probability of those consequences can be found by simulation, typically using Monte Carlo simulations or using historical data [4]. The problem of using simulations is that you need to know some initial data that not always are available. In the other hand, you just can use historical data if you have experience with similar projects. To brand new projects it isn t possible use this type of data. In the example given here, for the last risk in evaluation (risk ) it was used historical data to find the probability of the consequences, obtained from the experts. The event tree created for that risk is presented in Fig Tab 8 - Mapping in the risk matrix The risks and are out of the critical zone of the risk matrix, so they will not proceed to the quantitative evaluation QUANTITATIVE EVALUATION The scope of the quantitative evaluation is different from the scope of the qualitative evaluation. The quantitative evaluation aims to find the different 7 Fig 3 - Event tree of the risk From the event tree it s possible to conclude that the necessity of small changes in the displacement of the ship due to the excess of draft has a probability of 3/85, and the probability of drastic changes in displacement is 1/85.

8 RISK TREATMENT The sub-process of risk treatment handles the risks in the way of minimize the threats that they can cause to the project. This sub-process develops some procedures that act in the probability and consequences of the occurrence of a risk. The treatments suggested to the risk must follow some requirements to be applied. They must be as adequate as possible to the risk, be in agreement with the cost and the time of the project and they must be decided with the agreement of all the risk management team. There are four types of different treatments for the risk, the decision criteria has as start point the risk register and the documentation produced in the risk evaluation sub-process [4]. Those treatments are: Avoidance, Transfer, Mitigation and Acceptance. - Avoidance: it is to not allow the occurrence of the risk. Normally this type of treatment is applied to the consequences of the risks presented in the most critical zone of the risk matrix, where the probability and the impact are higher; - Transfer: It is to charge other entities for the consequences of a risk. A risk can be transferred with a sub-contracting or the creation of insurance. This type of treatment is applied to risks with lower probability of occurrence but with high impact; - Mitigation: This treatment tries to decrease the probability of occurrence or the impact of some risks. The mitigation implies to undertake premature actions that may be more advantageous than eliminate the consequences of the occurrence of the risk. The costs related with this type of treatment must be in agreement with the probability and impact of the risk. It is normally applied to risks with medium impact and probability; - Acceptance: This treatment is characterized by don t act about the risk. Is a treatment applied to risks with low impact. There are two types of acceptance, the passive acceptance and the active acceptance. The passive acceptance doesn t define any strategy to the consequences of the risk and it just acts in case of occurrence. The active acceptance is characterized by the definition of contingency plans in case of occurrence of the risk. 8 Each treatment acts in different types of risks, so it s possible to plot the different types of treatment in the risk matrix Fig 4. Fig 4 - Plot of the risk treatments in the matrix Depending on the risks, the plot of the treatment in the risk matrix needs to be carefully done and must be undertaken with some critical sense, in some cases it may not be advantageous to define the treatment by the matrix. RBS Risk Treatment Avoidance: Higher control in the spaces architecture Avoidance: Higher control in the spaces architecture Mitigation: Detailed study about the hull flow. Expert analysis. Avoidance: Control in the displacement computation and in the distribution of weights Active Acceptance: Contingency plan providing for the budgeting of an additional fuel tank on board Tab 9 - Risk Treatment As shown in the previous table, the risks and don t have the treatment proposed by the plot. In fact the consequences of the occurrence of these risks are too high to be accepted, as the plot proposed RISK MONITORING This is the last sub-process of the risk management process and it is intended to verify if the risk treatments are appropriate to the project during the application. The treatments defined for the risks can be applied in future stages of the project and this sub-process is necessary to verify if the treatment still valid when applied. If the project has not changed and the conditions that determine the treatment were the same, it can be applied, but otherwise it needs to be reformulated.

9 The identification and control of the residual and secondary risks must be done during this subprocess. The risk monitoring is responsible by producing documentation that provides information about the project s progress in the risk point of view. This sub-process was not applied to the shipbuilding project. 3. CONCLUSIONS The application of the process to the shipbuilding project was successful but there are some reflections that must be made. The risk management model presented here is centered in the risk factors. This type of procedure is not usual in the risk management processes developed before, but it was verified that the identification of the risk factors in the risk identification sub-process promotes it because with them is possible to identify common sources and, eventually, identify new risks. In the sub-process of risk evaluation, the use of the risk factors has advantages too. The use of these factors to compute their impact in the sustainability of the project allows identifying the most critical risks, turning the risk evaluation easier in P-I Score computations. In fact, computing the P-I Score to all the risks it was verified that the risks selected as critical by the risk factors method had in average a score 23.5% higher than the ones selected as not critical. This last observation leads us to another; The use of a bigger grading scale in the P-I Score computation, and consequently the use of a bigger risk matrix, promotes a better differentiation of the risks. The differences between the scores obtained by the critical and the non-critical risks, in the risk factor evaluation point of view, should increase with this application. The quantitative risk evaluation was done recurring to historical data provided by a shipyard. The use of this data is simple and profitable, but it must be applied just in cases where there are solid data bases, otherwise the results cannot be considered credible. 9 In the risk treatment sub-process was verified that the use of the risk matrix plot to decide what treatment a risk must have, need to be done carefully, because sometimes the result is not the more convenient. In a future study it must be useful developing a method that predicts, in the risk treatment subprocess, the budget and the estimated time needed to the implementation of the treatment. 4. REFERENCES [1] ISO GUIDE 73, Risk Management Vocabulary - Guidelines for use in standards, [2] ISO 31000, Risk Management - Principles and guidelines, [3] NASA, Exploration Systems - Risk Management Plan, NASA, Ed. Washington, [4] Department of Energy - United States of America, Risk Management guide, DOE-USA, Ed. Washington, [5] Chapman, C. and Ward, S., Project Risk Management, 2nd ed. John Wiley and Sons Ltd, [6] Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide), 4th ed., Project Management Institute, [7] F J Gomes Lopes, Gestão do Risco - Lições do Eng. Gomes Lopes, APQ, [8] E. E. Lewis, Introduction to Reliability Engineering, 2nd ed., New York, Wiley, [9] Hillson, D.,, Use a Risk Breakdown Structure (RBS) to Undestand Your Risks, October [10] Guedes Soares, C., Gomes Lopes, F., Pedro Mendes, J., "Método para Identificação e Gestão de Riscos em Projectos de Engenharia," in Riscos industriais e Emergentes, Volume I, C. Guedes Soares et al., Eds. Lisboa: Edições Salamandra Lda, 2009, pp [11] Gomes Lopes, F., Gestão e Organização de Estaleiros Navais - Lições do Eng. Gomes

10 Lopes, IST, [12] Guedes Soares, C., "Metodologia para a Análise e Gestão de Riscos," in Análise e Gestão de Riscos, Segurança e Fiabilidade - Vol. I, C. Guedes Soares, A. P. Teixeira, and P. Antão, Eds. Lisboa: Edições Salamndra, 2005, pp [13] NUREG, Reactor safety study - an assessment of accident risks is U. S. commercial nuclear power plants", WASH NUREG 75/014 U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commision, Ed. Washington, USA,