Incident investigation report guidelines

The final incident investigation report written by the assigned incident investigation team (which may include members from the client) can be written in a less structured way depending on the extent of the incident. A detailed discussion of how and why to conduct incident investigations can be found in the AIChE publication. Guidelines for Investigating Process Safety Incidents, Second Edition. 

Concerning written incident investigation procedures or guidelines, and the incident investigation report. 

Workforce Support for Data Collection and Incident Analysis Systems Few of the incident investigation and data collection systems reviewed provide any guidelines with regard to how these systems are to be introduced into an organization. Section 6.10 addresses this issue primarily from the perspective of incident reporting systems. However, gaining the support and ownership of the workforce is equally important for root cause analysis systems. Unless the culture and climate in a plant is such that personnel can be frank about the errors that may have contributed to an incident, and the factors which influenced these errors, then it is unlikely that the investigation will be very effective. 

For improved quality of formal written incident reports, the incident investigation team should follow these guidelines ... 

In the second major company, it was decided to maintain the status quo with respect to its guidelines on incident investigation and to ask management to provide additional staffing at headquarters for a review team that would receive reports on every OSHA-recordable incident and for incidents that could have resulted in serious injury but didn t. Reviewers would send their comments on report inadequacy to the originators of reports and require additional inquiry and report revision until the reviewer was satisfied. (Additional staffing had not been approved as of this writing.)... 

It is essential that all incidents are reported promptly, and in detail—even those that have only minor consequences or that are first aid cases or that are near misses. In the United States, incidents that meet the OSHA guidelines for recordability must also be documented and reported. (The topics of Incident Investigation and Root Cause Analysis are discussed in Process Risk and Reliability Management). 

The Guidelines for Investigating Chemical Process Incidents [4] has a section on near misses. Included in that section is a discussion of the fragile balance between a managers responsibility to promote and achieve near-miss reporting of incidents and the responsibility to discipline inappropriate behavior. It is a matter of trust and openness. A single occasion of necessary discipline (if viewed as somewhat unfair) can erode some confidence and create a... 

---