What is ICAM and when should I use it?
Short answer
ICAM (Incident Cause Analysis Method) is a structured root-cause analysis methodology developed in the late 1990s, widely used in Australian mining, construction and resources. It walks an investigator through four cause levels: absent or failed defences, individual or team actions, task or environmental conditions, and organisational factors.
ICAM stands for Incident Cause Analysis Method. It was developed in the late 1990s for the resources sector and has since become a de-facto standard in Australian mining, construction, oil and gas, and major hazard facilities.
ICAM categorises causes into four levels (Reason's Swiss Cheese / J. Reason model):
- Absent or failed defences (AFDs) — the controls that should have prevented the event but didn't (PPE not worn, guard missing, alarm not heard).
- Individual or team actions (IATs) — the immediate actions or omissions of people involved (a worker stepped into a no-go zone, a supervisor didn't verify lockout).
- Task or environmental conditions (TECs) — the local conditions that made the act more likely (poor lighting, time pressure, unclear procedure).
- Organisational factors (OFs) — the systemic factors (resourcing, training, culture, design choices) that produced the conditions.
The output of an ICAM is typically:
- A timeline of the event.
- A categorised list of causes at each level.
- A CAPA (corrective and preventive action) register addressing the OFs, not just the AFDs.
When to use ICAM: any significant incident — generally anything beyond "minor first aid". Mining and construction sites often run ICAM by default for medium-severity and above; healthcare and aged care use ICAM (or a similar method like RCA² / 5 Whys) for sentinel events.
RAE IQ's ICAM module is available on the Business tier and walks the investigator through the four cause levels, building the cause map and the CAPA list as the investigation progresses.