Citation

Doos M, Backstrom T, Samuelsson S. Safety Sci. 1994; 17(3): 187-206.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1994, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article addresses the question of the usefulness of a strategy of comprehensive, targeted accident investigations. The strategy has been tested at fifteen manufacturing companies where the accidents that occurred in automated production were investigated using a purpose-built investigation chart. The investigators were principally safety engineers.The strategy has been evaluated through retrospective interviewing of 18 accident investigators and by examining the number of accidents at the participating companies.The strategy has been of considerable benefit for seven of the investigators, while the others benefited to a lesser and varying extent. It was mainly those who carried out more than five investigations who obtained the greatest benefit. Above all the investigatory work was reported to have contributed to learning about the causes of and factors involved in accidents at automated installations.To determine whether the strategy contributed to a fall in the number of accidents is not possible on the basis of our data. The investigators also considered this hard to assess. Nevertheless, in a randomly-selected sample of accidents at the companies involved in the project, "automation accidents" as a proportion of all occupational accidents had in fact fallen by the end of the investigation period (in comparison with the start of the investigatory activities).The main conclusions that can be drawn are that the interview with the injured person has provided the investigators with new knowledge (on, for example, accident risks involved in automated production, job routines and the machinery), and that the strategy has been most successful at companies where the investigator has actively applied his new knowledge and disseminated it to others.