What is Incident Investigation?

What exactly is an "incident" investigation and why should I really care?

It is a systematic approach to:

• identify casual factors of incidents including near misses
• identify corrective actions
• implementing corrective actions to prevent re-occurrence

Investigation process identifies “Root Cause”
An Effective incident investigation process is essential to a successful Health & Safety assessment improvement management

Is it an accident or just an incident?
Does it really matter?  One resulted in an injury and one did not but only due to pure luck
 

 

Accidents are usually complex

•An accident is any unplanned event that results in personal injury or property damage

–The failure of people, equipment, supplies, or surroundings to behave or react as expected causes most accidents

•Accident investigations determine HOW and WHY these failures occur

–Conduct accident investigations with accident prevention in mind--investigations are NOT to place blame

•An accident may have 10 or more events that can be causes

•A detailed analysis of an accident will normally reveal three cause levels:

–Basic

–Indirect

–Direct 

 

Attempting to assign BLAME is not productive and does not

prevent recurrence !