EVALUATION OF A STRATEGY - PREVENTING ACCIDENTS WITH AUTOMATED MACHINERY THROUGH TARGETED AND COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATIONS CONDUCTED BY SAFETY ENGINEERS

This article addresses the question of the usefulness of a strategy of comprehensive, targeted accident investigations. The strategy has bee n tested at fifteen manufacturing companies where the accidents that o ccurred in automated production were investigated using a purpose-buil t investigation chart. The investigators were principally safety engin eers. The strategy has been evaluated through retrospective interviewi ng of 18 accident investigators and by examining the number of acciden ts at the participating companies. The strategy has been of considerab le benefit for seven of the investigators, while the others benefited to a lesser and varying extent. It was mainly those who carried out mo re than five investigations who obtained the greatest benefit. Above a ll the investigatory work was reported to have contributed to learning about the causes of and factors involved in accidents at automated in stallations. To determine whether the strategy contributed to a fall i n the number of accidents is not possible on the basis of our data. Th e investigators also considered this hard to assess. Nevertheless, in a randomly-selected sample of accidents at the companies involved in t he project, ''automation accidents'' as a proportion of all occupation al accidents had in fact fallen by the end of the investigation period (in comparison with the start of the investigatory activities). The m ain conclusions that can be drawn are that the interview with the inju red 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 knowled ge and disseminated it to others.