knowledge of incident investigation methods in ohs

#Knowledge of incident investigation methods in ohs how to#

Optional information collection, interviewing, and root cause analysis tools that aren’t typically applied in simple incident investigations.Assistance from specially trained consultants (for example, equipment or human factors experts).

A more highly trained investigation leader/facilitator and more highly trained investigators.

Performing the investigation under the direction of an attorney to maintain legal privilege.

Thus a major accident investigation process will have to be more robust to accomplish the goals of the investigation. What is the difference between a simple investigation of a precursor incident and the investigation of a major accident? That could be the subject of a whole book! But let’s start with the fact that a major accident investigation will be much more complex, will probably have a team performing the investigation, and will have much more management and regulatory interest (and perhaps even a separate regulatory or prosecutorial investigation).

Try the fastest cause analysis tool – Spin-A-Cause™! (OK – that’s a joke.).

If the incident isn’t worth investigating … DON’T investigate it!.

Is that minimum set of best practices just too much? Then you have two choices: What are these best practices? CLICK HERE for an article that explains them. That systematic process should avoid common problems (placing blame and cognitive biases) and promote the use of investigation best practices.Įven simple investigations have a minimum set of simple incident investigation best practices to succeed. The best way to investigate any incident, even minor incidents that are still worth investigating is to use a systematic process.

Most incidents are low-to-moderate risk incidents, precursor incidents, or close calls (near-misses). Now that we understand the definition of an incident, we need to find the best way to perform an incident investigation. Precursor incidents may be called close calls or near-misses.įor a more in-depth discussion about precursor incidents, CLICK HERE. If one or two more Safeguards would have failed. Minor incidents that could have been a major accident For example, you could have injuries or fatalities, equipment damage, and an environmental release as part of a sequence of events that includes a chemical plant explosion.Īnother type of incident to investigate is a precursor incident. It is possible to have multiple incidents in a single chain of events. Thus an incident is the worst safety, quality, equipment reliability, production, or environmental issue in the sequence of events. The sequence of events describes what happened in a safety, quality, equipment reliability, production, or environmental problem. Measuring the effectiveness of your incident investigations.Getting management to understand what happened and to approve the resources needed to implement corrective actions to prevent future incidents, and.Developing corrective actions to prevent repeat incidents,.

#Knowledge of incident investigation methods in ohs how to#

How to find an incident’s root causes and Generic Causes,.

Identifying the incident’s Causal Factors,.

Developing the incident’s sequence of events,.

Best practices for collecting incident information (including interviewing),.

The best way to investigate simple incidents,.

Incident Investigation is a systematic process to find the root causes of problems and develop effective solutions to improve performance.