Accident investigation: Philosophy of industrial accident investigation should be clear and well explained to workers. It should not be oriented towards fault-finding and blaming any individual. Its main objective is to find out the real cause of the accident and then based on it, to suggest appropriate remedial measures to prevent its recurrence.
Steps involved in accident investigation: 1. Provide first aid and/or medical care to the injured persons and take action to prevent further injury or damage. This is the first priority. 2. Report the accident as required by your company's policies. 3. Investigate the accident as soon as possible after it occurs. This allows you to observe the conditions as they were at the time of the accident, prevents the disturbance of evidence, and allows you to identify witnesses. You will need to gather physical evidence, take photographs, and interview witnesses to understand the chain of events that led to the accident. 4. Identify the causes of the accident. Note that there are usually multiple causes. 5. Report your findings in a written report. in preparing the report, it is helpful to prepare step-by-step account or timeline working back from the moment of the accident, listing all possible causes at each step. This account can be helpful in preparing the final report, which should clearly explain the evidence for your conclusions. 6. Develop a plan for corrective action to prevent the accident from happening again. These actions should be specific, constructive, address root causes of the accident, and address the causes described in the report. 7. Implement your corrective action plan. It is helpful to set a deadline for implementation of corrective actions and there should be monitoring in place to ensure that they are completed. 8. Follow up to evaluate the effectiveness of the corrective actions taken. 9. Make adjustments as needed to continue to improve.
Purpose of investigation and Report: 1. To learn accident causes so that similar accidents can be prevented by improvement of working conditions, actions and supervision. This helps in designing accident prevention strategies. 2. To make hazard known to the management, workers and supervisors to direct their attention to accident prevention. 3. To find facts to determine legal liability and information for preventive purposes. If the purpose is to fix blame or responsibility, vital information will often withheld or distorted. Therefore an investigation should be for the preventive purposes to disclose facts and not faults. 4. To establish procedure to combat damage claims under compensation laws. 5. To determine the change or deviation that produced an error that in turn resulted in an accident. 6. In case of accident affecting the society as a whole the Government may intervene for the purpose of banning of the hazardous material or process. 7. To find out injury rates to compare safety performance. 8. To use the record for the purpose of job safety analysis.
Types of investigations:
1. Failure mode & effect analysis
2. HAZOP
3. Fault tree
4. Event tree
5. Cost effectiveness
6. Statistical method
7. Critical incident method
8. System safety
Content of Accident Investigation report:
1. Name and address of the factory.
2. Name and address of the investigator and with whom.
3. Facts finding including date, time, place and manner of the accident, persons involved, result, etc.
4. Drawings, photographs, sketches, records, registers, documents pertaining to accident.
5. The process at the time of the accident.
6. The causes of the accident in details and with break up.
7. The remedial measures.
8. The breach of law, if any.
9. Compensation to be paid and information for insurance purpose.
10. The delivery of the report to whom and how.