Incident Investigation and Techniques 201

In Incident Investigation and Techniques 201, you'll learn ...

• The benefits (and limitations) of "Root Cause Analysis" (RCA) techniques
• How RCA techniques factor into an incident investigation
• Applying the 10-step incident investigation process

Overview

Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.

Credit: 5 PDH

Length: 68 pages

If you recall from Incident Investigation Principles & Techniques 101 (F-3007), an incident is any unplanned or undesired event that negatively impacts or could have impacted your facility's operations. You also learned that the primary areas where an incident is most commonly monitored are: personal safety, environmental, process safety, product quality, reliability, or security of assets. Assets include people, property, equipment, environment, and the surrounding community.

In this course, we will define a "Root Cause" as a cause that, if addressed or mitigated, will reduce the chances of the event occurring again or the frequency being drastically expanded/lengthened between events. A "Root Cause" is further defined as an underlying cause or deep-rooted cause that may not be obvious from a general review. Just like a weed, if you cut off the top, it will grow back, but if you kill the root, the top will wither and die. Addressing a "Root Cause" will remove many other general causes, sometimes referred to as band-aide fixes.

Lastly, we learned the ten basic steps, that if performed correctly, will improve your chances of determining a "Root Cause" or causes. In the course "Writing Effective Recommendations for Incidents, PHAs, LOPAs, MOCs, Reviews, Projects, and Audits" (P-2024), we learned to write effective recommendations to prevent these "Root Causes" from reoccurring.

Now it is time to learn a few simple "Root Cause Analysis" (RCA) methods available to the general public without having to purchase a program: Fishbone, Cause Mapping, and Five Whys. This course will use fictional examples with realistic simulated data to walk you through the ten-step investigation process using RCA. Whether you love performing Incident Investigations as much as the author or are just curious about the process, you need not have ever conducted an incident investigation to enjoy this course.

Are you ready to apply the ten basic incident investigation steps in detail? This ten-step process applies to any investigations process whether regulated by OSHA or not. What does this mean? If you conduct simple investigations or complex ones, under regulatory necessity or because it improves your company’s competitive advantage, this course is for you. Let's walk through the process together to become experts in basic RCA incident investigation techniques.

Specific Knowledge or Skill Obtained

This course teaches the following specific knowledge and skills:

• Applying three of the most common RCA techniques to solve for "Root Causes"
• Practice conducting a "Root Cause" incident investigation on your own using different methods
• How to preserve and collect evidence
• Best practices for assembling and managing an investigation team
• Techniques for constructing a detailed timeline
• The art of conducting effective interviews of personnel

Certificate of Completion

You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 40 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.