Greetings, all, and welcome to our Week 3 lecture on root cause analysis in incident investigations. If you haven't already, please take a few moments to review the Week 3 overview in Canvas. You'll see that we are now moving on to topics around investigating, reporting, and recording injuries and illnesses that occur in the workplace. And while reporting and record-keeping of injuries and illnesses are required by OSHA, conducting incident investigations actually are not per se.
There are some exceptions. However, incident investigations are critical to any kind of accident prevention efforts. And the more effective that incident investigations are, the more benefit that they provide in accident prevention efforts. The lecture today specifically focuses on root cause analysis in incident investigations because root cause analysis makes incident investigations more effective.
They bring the underlying causal factors of incidents to the surface, which then enables employers to properly address the circumstances around why the injury or illness occurred. And then they can prevent those circumstances from occurring again. So we will jump right in. These are the topics that I'll be lecturing on today. Root cause analysis fundamentals, corrective action and preventative action, incorporating root cause analysis into incident investigations.
And then we have a practice exercise on using the 5 Whys root cause analysis method. And then at the end of the lecture, as always, I have some additional resource links for you. Okay. Root cause analysis fundamentals. So root cause analysis is any method that evaluates the facts and circumstances around an event. And from those facts and circumstances derives the primary reason for why the event occurred.
And there are multiple methods that can be used for root cause analysis. There is a method called the 5 Whys method. It's pretty common all over the world. And that method was originated by Mr. Sakichi Toyoda, and he was the founder of Toyota Industries Corporation. And they are the parent company of Toyota Motor Corporation, who I'm sure you all are very familiar with. And he developed the 5 Whys method to address quality control issues that he was seeing in his own manufacturing and engineering processes.
And so we're focusing on the 5 Whys method in this class because it is widely used in workplace injury and illness incident investigations. And it's a highly effective method in determining the root cause and contributing causes of incidents. So corrective and preventative actions. So corrective and preventive action as a business concept was originated by Dr. Joseph Juran, and he is widely known as the Father of Quality.
And he developed this process similar to Mr. Toyoda to address quality control issues that he was seeing in his own manufacturing and engineering processes. So it's pretty neat that we have these two quality experts that develop business concepts and processes to address quality issues that they were seeing. And now those same business concepts are being applied in safety with incident investigations and to address other safety issues.
So corrective actions and preventative actions should always be developed as the last step in an incident investigation. And they should directly address the root causes and the contributing causes of incidents that I was mentioning on the previous slide. And so corrective actions normally, but not always, address the contributing causes or the obvious causes of incidents. And then preventative actions normally, but not always, address the root causes of incidents.
And so, sometimes you can, these can be flip-flopped, but normally, it's the -- corrective actions address the contributing causes, and then preventive actions address the root causes. And so these are the steps that you would take to incorporate root cause analysis into your incident investigations. So you conduct a root cause analysis after all the facts of the incident have been investigated and documented. And then you start with the incident itself as the problem.
All root cause analyses start with a problem. So the problem could be an employee who strained muscles in her shoulder or arm. So that's the incident or that's the injury, and that would be the problem that you start with. And then you ask why five times. You document each answer. And then the root cause is normally the answer to the fifth why. And so next you develop actions, corrective actions for the contributing and the obvious causes, and those are normally the answers to the first four whys that you ask.
And then, you develop preventive actions for the root cause. And as I mentioned, that is normally the answer to the fifth why that you ask. And so once you have developed your corrective actions and your preventative actions, that concludes your incident investigation, so then you would review the results of your incident investigation with the affected parties. So it would be the employee who was injured, their manager, if their manager wasn't a part of the incident investigation team, normally that manager is, but you review it with other employees in the area who may be doing the same job, their managers, whomever the affected parties are, you should review the results of the incident investigation with them.
And then once you have done that, then you go to actually implement corrective actions and the preventative actions that you determined were necessary. And then you monitor the implementation for effectiveness. Okay. So we have a practice exercise here now. So you can see how the 5 Whys method works. And so the problem that we're going to use for the practice is that I got a traffic ticket on my way to work.
So that's the problem. And I'm going to ask why five times. I'm going to document all five answers. And then we're going to talk about the contributing causes. Those are the -- those are the first four answers to the whys, and then the root cause will be the fifth answer to the whys. And then we'll look at corrective actions for those contributing causes, and then a preventative action for the root cause.
Okay. So here we go. I got a traffic ticket on the way to work. Why? Because I ran a red light. So why did you run a red light? Because I was late for work. Why were you late for work? Because I got up late. Why did you get up late? Because my alarm didn't go off. And this is the fifth why, so this will, in most cases, be your root cause. So why didn't your alarm go off? Because I forgot to set it.
So forgetting to set the alarm clock set off a chain of events that led to me getting a traffic ticket on my way to work. And this is how accidents happen. Right? There is never one reason solely why accident happens. It's a chain of events that happens. And so that's why it's important to use some kind of root cause analysis method. The 5 Whys method as you can see works great to find out what the root cause is.
And then you also have all these contributing factors, these contributing causes as well. And each of these contributing causes should be addressed. So they would have a corrective action that was developed for them. And then you would have a preventative action for your root cause. So let's take a look. So running a red light, a corrective action could be "Obey the traffic lights." Being late for work, a corrective action could be "Start getting ready for work earlier." What about getting up late?
Well, we could say you need to get more sleep. And then my alarm not going off. Well, we need to check the alarm to make sure that it's working properly every night before we go to bed. And so this one could be the root cause, but for the purposes of this practice exercise, we're going to use it as a contributing cause. But that one also could be a root cause. And so, then for our root cause, forgetting to set the alarm, our preventative, corrective, our preventive action is going to be "Remember to set the alarm every night before bed." And so if this were your 5 Whys method for an incident investigation, you would document all these.
You would document all this out, the reasons, the causes that you came up with, all of the corrective actions and the preventative action. And so that would all be a part of your incident investigation. And so, once you complete these, then that completes your incident investigation. And so that's how the 5 Whys root cause analysis method works. Okay. So this completes the lecture for today.
And these are the additional resource links for this week. And these links are also linked for you in Canvas for easier access. And then these are the sources that I referenced today when I was discussing Dr. Juran and Mr. Toyoda. So as always, please submit any questions or comments that you may have about the material that was covered today via the Canvas inbox messaging feature.
And thank you for tuning in.