Three recent events have spurred me to write a little about sharing incident investigations.
- OSHA delayed its rule on web-based incident reporting. This could greatly increase the information on accident data to mine for tweaking regulations and for company’s best practice outcomes.
- The IEEE-ESW Construction Electrical Safety Workshop kicked off in Washington, DC provoked a lot of sharing among larger construction companies about their incidents.
Deb Grubbe does a good job describing the electrical safety work we all did in DC. - I came across a Facebook company incident at a Sweden Data Center investigated by Schneider Electric and the internal Facebook Engineering Team.
Sharing of info about incidents is embarrassing, and Facebook’s legal didn’t really want them to share. But sharing in the long run is what helps us all become better.
Goes back to confession being good for the soul. It might also be good for humanity, your workers and your company’s bottom line.
Nuclear does a great job with operating experience (OPEX) data bases. I remember being able to see incidents reports from other plants all around the world – their experiences proved very useful. Would be awesome if a similar data base for electrical safety regardless of industry was available. Makes you think all electrical incidents should be required by OSHA to be put in a data base and searchable.
That is a wish of many people and a fear of others. The DOE does report all incidents via EFCOG.org and these are amazingly helpful. Some fear the government but transparency makes everyone accountable. I hope the database goes online even if they redact the company name. Having information to make good decisions is critical.