A hierarchical assessment of resilience engineering indicators in petrochemical industries using AHP and TOPSIS

Resilience engineering (RE) is a proactive approach that enables complex systems to deal with adverse events and improve safety management by enhancing structural and organizational capabilities. A methodological examination of RE-related studies showed that they had only focused on some major indicators so that subindicators have been mostly neglected. This study aims to present a hierarchical analysis to identify the importance degree of indicators and subindicators of RE using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) in a petrochemical plant. To accomplish this, a pairwise comparison matrix of the indicators and subindicators was used to collect the data required for AHP approach. To demonstrate the applicability of the AHP results, this study ranks the units of the petrochemical plant using the technique for the order of preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach based on the importance degree of RE indicators. A questionnaire was used to gather data related to RE indicators so we could use the TOPSIS method. The results of the AHP showed that management commitment, buffering capacity, and reporting culture were the most influential RE indicators. In addition, anticipation had the lowest impact on RE. The most important subindicators of the RE indicators were also identified using a hierarchical analysis through AHP. The results of TOPSIS provided a best–worst analysis of the units of the petrochemical plant. The findings of this study could help safety managers formulate better-targeted safety policies by investing in influential indicators and subindicators of RE.