Designing virtual environments for risk prevention : the MELISSA approach

Abstract : Industrial safety management systems are composed of a set of formal and informal rules. These rules are subject to constant negotiations among industrial staff concerned by these rules. The aim of such negotiations is to adapt rules to specific situations features of daily industrial operations. The negotiation process needs to take into account the safety rules and more precisely the relevant elements of their application contexts. We propose to use a virtual environment to stimulate this process. The success of such negotiations (in virtual environments) depends on the identification of required knowledge for representing safety rules application contexts. In this paper we present our model and methodology MELISSA that aim at identifying this knowledge, and to share it within the virtual environment design team. In this paper, we first describe the knowledge needed to represent a working situation. Then, we present elements required for the conception of such virtual environments. Finally, we discuss about the interest of our approach.