Incident investigation
Also known as: ICAM · RCA · Root cause analysis
Incident investigation is the structured analysis of how and why an incident occurred — including root cause(s), contributing factors and systemic gaps — so that corrective action can prevent recurrence. ICAM (Incident Cause Analysis Method) is the dominant model in Australian heavy industry.
Legal context
Incident investigation is required by ISO 45001 Cl 10.2 and is the operational expression of the model WHS Act's s38 notification duty plus the broader "what went wrong, what would prevent it next time" cycle. Common methods include ICAM, 5 Whys, TapRoot, fishbone diagrams, and event-and-causal-factor charting. A defensible investigation: defines the event in factual terms, captures the timeline, identifies immediate causes (the unsafe act or condition) and root causes (the systemic gap that allowed the immediate cause), evaluates control failures across the hierarchy, and produces CAPA actions that close the systemic gap rather than just disciplining the person involved. For notifiable incidents (ss35–38), the regulator may run its own investigation in parallel — the PCBU's investigation does not replace the regulator's.
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Related terms
Notifiable incident
A notifiable incident is a death, serious injury or illness, or dangerous incident that a PCBU must report to the WHS regulator immediately (and in writing within 48 hours). The list is defined in ss35–37 of the model WHS Act and the site must be preserved until an inspector arrives or directs otherwise.
NCR
A Non-Conformity Report records a failure to meet a defined requirement — a WHS rule, an ISO 45001 clause, an internal procedure, a regulator condition. NCRs feed the CAPA register and are the primary lag indicator of system performance.
CAPA
Corrective and Preventive Action is the structured response to a non-conformity or incident: investigate root cause, define corrective action (fix this) and preventive action (stop it recurring elsewhere), assign accountable owners and due dates, and verify the action was effective. ISO 45001 Cl 10.2 governs the workflow.
Hierarchy of control
The hierarchy of control is the rank-ordered preference for risk treatment: eliminate the hazard, then substitute, then isolate, then engineer, then administer, then PPE as a last resort. Higher controls reduce risk more reliably than lower controls because they do not depend on people behaving correctly under stress.
Platform pillars
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