Business and Regulatory Aspects of Effective near-Miss Management Implementation

Accidents typically have a history of warning signals that are leading indicators or precursors of major events causing business disruptions.  Collectively these signals are called near-misses.  The definition of a near-miss was debated until about a decade ago, but now the concept is much better understood by most corporate safety, health and environmental groups.  Yet, its effective implementation still lags behind standard safety practices.

In this paper, principles of an effective near-miss management system are discussed and both regulatory and business aspects of near-miss management are addressed.  The regulatory review targets various near-miss related regulations and the challenges faced in their implementation.  The business aspect focuses on cost effective and results oriented methodologies to meet regulatory obligations.  Examples are presented to facilitate implementation process.