A model to analyze human and organizational factors contributing to pandemic risk assessment in manufacturing industries: FBN-HFACS Modelling

Abstract This study presents a holistic model based on Fuzzy Bayesian Network-Human Factor Analysis and System Classification (FBN-HFACS) to analyze contributing factors in the pandemic, Covid 19, risk management under uncertainty. The model contains three main phases include employing a) HFACS to systematically identify influencing factors based on validation using content validity indicators, b) Fuzzy Set Theory to obtain the prior probability distribution of contributing factors in pandemic risk and address the epistemic uncertainty and subjectivity, and finally, c) Bayesian network to develop causality model of the risk, probabilistic inferences and handle parameter and model uncertainties. The Ratio of Variation (RoV), as BN-driven importance measures, is utilized to conduct sensitivity analysis and explore the most critical factors that yield effective safety countermeasures. The model is tested to investigate four large manufacturing industries in South Khorasan (Iran). It provided a deep understanding of influencing human and organizational factors and captured dependencies among those factors, while quantitative finding paves a way to efficiently make risk-based decisions to deal with the pandemic risks under uncertainty.