Develop Recommendations
An incident investigation and analysis provides little value if its findings do not lead to meaningful recommendations that address corrective actions and safety management system (SMS) improvements.
Some actions are needed immediately to protect employees, such as removing defective equipment from service or controlling a hazardous area. Long-term corrective actions may also be necessary to address the contributing factors and root causes identified during the analysis.
Build Support for Your Recommendations
Even a well-designed corrective action will accomplish little if it is not implemented. Investigators should provide decision-makers with enough information to understand the proposed action, the cause or hazard it addresses, and the expected benefits.
Some corrective actions require an initial investment of time, personnel, or money. Recommendations that clearly connect identified causes → corrective actions → risk reduction give decision-makers a stronger basis for evaluating the proposed improvements.
Decision-makers may need information about cost, feasibility, production, staffing, scheduling, implementation time, and expected risk reduction. Anticipating these questions and providing relevant information can support informed decisions.
When appropriate, investigators can also identify organizational benefits, such as preventing injuries, reducing equipment damage and downtime, avoiding production interruptions, and improving work processes.
Connect Corrective Actions to Identified Causes
Recommendations should clearly explain how proposed corrective actions will eliminate or control identified hazards and address contributing factors and root causes. A recommendation that is not connected to an investigation finding may not address the reasons the incident occurred.
In this module, you will learn how to develop and present corrective actions that address incident causes, control hazards, strengthen the safety management system, and help prevent similar incidents.
Knowledge Check Choose the best answer for the question.
7-1. After correcting an immediate hazard, what should investigators do next?
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