How To Conduct A Thorough Accident Investigation

Many supervisors who are not trained to conduct a proper accident investigation will blame employee carelessness as the cause of an accident. The supervisor’s usual response will be to warn the employee to “be more careful.” The supervisor may feel satisfied with this result, but it seldom correct the conditions that are actually responsible for the accident.

An accident serves as a clue to something that went wrong in the operational process. You are in the best position to detect and correct conditions that lead to operational problems in your department. These problems fall into three categories: equipment, material, and people.  The equipment category would include selection, arrangement, use, and maintenance. The subject of material would involve selection, placement, handling, and processing.
The category of personnel would look consider selection, placement, training, and supervision.

Take the case of an employee whose fingers were crushed in a power press. 

First look at equipment:

• What press was involved?
• What guards were on the press?
• How were they adjusted?
• How was the press activated?

Next look at the material involved:

• Does the material easily get caught in the machine?
• Is the material difficult to work with?
• Is the material too small or too large for the machine?

Finally question the personnel:

• Who was the employee?
• How was he trained?
• Did his supervisor ever check to see that he was following safe procedures?
• Why did he reach under the guard?
• What additional training is needed?

 

In this case, it would have been easy to say that the employee was at fault. But, if you look deeper at the specific causes of the accident, you may find that perhaps additional training is needed or that the guard on the machine was not adjusted properly and needs to be fixed. Once you find the solution, make sure to follow through with the necessary corrections.

Checklist for Accident Investigations

• Are you, as the supervisor, responsible for accident investigations in your department?
• Do you avoid giving easy answers as corrective solutions, such as “told employee to be careful?”
• Do you look for more detailed, complex causes for accidents?
• Do you look at the three important categories: equipment, material, and people?
• Do you investigate thoroughly by talking to the victim and witnesses and studying the accident site?
• Do you take measurements at the accident site?
• Do you ask questions without assigning blame?
• Do you investigate near misses as well as accidents?
• Do you follow up on your corrective actions?
• Do you always make sure the employees involved are retrained?
• Do you communicate your findings to the rest of the company?