Monday Accident & Lessons Learned: How Much Root Cause Analysis Can You Buy for $5.6 Million Dollars?

Here are the headlines from The Bakersfield Californian:

“CPUC proposes $5.6 million fine against PG&E for 2012 demolition fatality in Bakersfield”

As reported by the paper, one of the findings of the PUC that led to the fine was:

“PG&E gave the CPUC an accident analysis prepared by Cleveland, as well as the utility’s own evaluation. But commission staff said both ‘failed to provide an adequate or comprehensive root cause analysis for the incident’ to help determine corrective actions.”

So here are some questions to consider:

1. Do you require that your contractors perform adequate accident investigations?
2. What root cause tools do your contractors use? Shouldn’t they be using TapRooT®?
3. Are you waiting for fatalities to require better root cause analysis and incident investigation? Why don’t you have someone attend an 5-Day TapRooT® Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Course ASAP (this month?).
4. Isn’t it time that you learned how to use root cause analysis proactively to stop fatalities before accidents happen? You should attend the Using TapRooT® Proactively Course.

How many lessons can your company learn from this accident?