Guidelines for investigation of logistics incidents and identifying root causes

An accident is a sudden event that is not planned or intended and that causes damage or injury.

An incident is a sudden event that is not planned or intended and that causes damage or injury or has the potential to do so. In this guideline both words are used interchangeably because the process to investigate and to take corrective actions is the same. There exists plenty of guidance on how to investigate incidents.

Most chemical companies have identified and developed their own standard method for investigating on-site events.

There is a however a need for industry guidance for the investigation of off-site logistics events, to assist Logistics Service Providers (LSP’s) in carrying out incident investigations.

The availability of industry guidance should promote more uniformity and provide a common methodology for LSP’s independent of the customer.

It will help both transport companies and chemical companies in continuously improving their safety performance by learning from incidents.

This guideline focuses on the investigation of incidents and near incidents (near misses) that happen in the off-site transport and related handling of chemical products.

It covers all modes of transport, loading/unloading and operations at terminals, warehouses and tank cleaning stations.

Most chemical manufacturers have identified their investigation method of choice for onsite events.

They can, depending on the nature of the incident, decide to use their on-site incident investigation method for on-site logistics events or use the logistics-specific method described in this document. The objective of this document is to provide guidance on how to carry out an incident investigation, identify the root causes and the corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence. The guideline is aimed for use by all parties in the supply chain: chemical manufacturers, transport companies, distributors, storage companies, tank cleaning stations, etc.

CEFIC 2015