Incident Investigation and Accident Prevention in the Process and Allied Industries

To prevent future accidents, a complete examination of the causes and contributory factors of an accident is necessary. Stressing the need to correct these issues, Incident Investigation and Accident Prevention in the Process and Allied Industries strikes a balance between the theoretical and applied aspects of accident investigation while also addressing accident prevention. Based on the authors forty years of experience, this detailed work covers an extensive range of topics often encountered during an incident investigation. Since the scope and needs of investigations can widely vary, the author begins with an introduction that provides guidance on how to use the book. He supplies a "roadmap" of incident investigation, making the material accessible to novices yet also valuable to more seasoned investigators. Topics include: Responding to occurrence of incidents and emergency response Securing the site and handling eyewitness testimonies Notification of appropriate authorities, compliance requirements, and legal and insurance issues Internal/external incident investigation options and investigation team requirements Disassembly, gathering, screening, tagging, storing of evidence, and post-incident testing Establishing preliminary causal mechanisms and root cause determinations Multiple cause determination, incident modeling, and human error evaluation and reporting Remedial and preventative measures, lessons learned, and reconstruction and retraining Accident prevention through predictive methodologies, including pro-active measures Pre- and post-incident management Corporate structuring, attitudinal problems, and planning an accident prevention program