The objective of this work was to develop a model to evaluate the performance of process safety management systems of paint manufacturing facilities The model was constructed based oil a three-level multi-attribute value model (MAVT) approach The first level consisted of Deming's PDCA cycle, labeled as Plan, Do, Control, and Act Factors. The 20 attributes of the second level and 101 elements of the third levels were significant attributes derived from the literature search The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) and factor analysis were used to assign their weights Using this model, a Safety Index (SI) of a paint manufacturing facility could be calculated based on the independent evaluation of safety auditors. Safety audits oil four paint manufacturing facilities were conducted by three auditors chosen from government inspectors, safety consulting engineers and paint industry professionals. The results showed that the two OHSAS 18001 certified facilities with zero Disabling Severity Rate (SR) and Disabling Frequency Rate (FR) statistics in 2006 scored Much higher than those without OHSAS 18001 certification and with high SR/FR The result of a two-way ANOVA and the low standard deviations indicated that the bias among different auditors was minimal The framework developed in this work will be modified, generalized, and applied to other industry sectors in the future. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.