Research Paper

1

8

Sample Paper (what your paper should look like)

An improved accident causation model

Introduction

Accident analysis is an important element in developing a comprehensive efficient and safety management system. Accident analysis report provides crucial information on occurrence, the process of the accident, and prevention mechanisms that could be deployed to avoid unfortunate occurrence (Wang & Yan, 2019). Normally, endless accident cases are reported daily and most importantly, stakeholders should commit to learning from reported accident cases to understand reported unsafe acts and practices that have contributed to such accidents (Wang & Yan, 2019). This would help to assess their organization's safety management structures and systems to establish whether reported unsafe acts and practices could also be available in their workplaces. In the United States, 5,333 fatal work injuries were reported in 2019 which was a 2% increase from the previous year with a fatality rate recorded as 3.5 per 100,000 for the full-time equivalent workers (U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). This raise concerns on the compliance of organizations with occupation safety and standard protocols. It is sad to note that every 99 minutes, a worker died from work-related injury (U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). The accident causation model plays a crucial role in the accident analysis by helping to establish the relationship between different causes of the accident to better help people identify key lessons. There are numerous accident causation models or theories but the in this assignment, attention is paid to an improved accident causation model. Further, having identified there are many workplace accidents, the case of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill is considered for analysis.

An improved Accident Causation Model

In the domain of safety research and management, multiple accident causation models have been proposed. Sample of these models includes Greenwood and Woods that argued that accidents frequently occurred to accident-prone individuals but failed to identify individuals that are accident-prone hence developing target measures to individual behaviors is not possible; Heinrich domino-accident causation model argued that unsafe acts attributed to individual shortcomings arising from genetic and socio-environment factors caused the accident but this model failed to specifically establish what unsafe acts and individual shortcoming entails; Reason’s omnipresent Swiss Cheese model argued that most of the unsafe acts are derived from organizational influence factors but fails to explicitly define organizational influence factors that make it hard to practically develop a hypothesis to that effect among other accident causation models(Wang & Yan, 2019). Based on the evaluation of most of these accident causation models, it is evident that these models have aspects of deficiencies complicating their use in the accident analysis.

An improved accident causation model considers deficiencies in the past accident causation models and creates taxonomy and specific contents of various accident causes optimizing logical and theoretical relationships (Wang & Yan, 2019). An improved accident causation model has been used in various domains. For example, coal mine accidents, hazardous chemical accidents, ferry accidents, and construction accidents constitute some of the domains in which an improved accident causation model has been used (Wang & Yan, 2019).

Wang and Yan (2019) reveal that an improved accident causation model has been used on high oil profile accidents. This is because the model unearths specific causes of accidents in the petrochemical domain hence suitable for accident analysis for Exxon Valdez Oil Spill.

An improved accident causation model illustrates the relationship that exists between causes and effects. In the accident analysis, other than identifying causes of the accident, it is necessary to documents effects that essentially establish enable management to understand the magnitude of the accident hence informing on the weight of preventive measures to take prevent such occurrences. Based on management controllability, causes are either internal or external. In the accident analysis, greater attention is paid to internal causes because they are within the management capability of the organization. However, even though internal causes are within the boundaries of the organization, external causes contribute to accidents by influencing internal causes (Wang & Yan, 2019).

With an improved accident causation model, a framework for accident analysis is based on the four main factors: First, the safety culture of the organization is evaluated which refers to beliefs and values shared by the employees relating to safety and, development of a safety management system. Organizations with a deficient safety culture result in a lack of a safety management system. Some of the key elements of safety culture are the importance of enhancing safety, the necessity of safety management system, the role of creating safety awareness, safe investment, demand for safety training, safety responsibility managers, the role of safety regulations, and emergency response capability (Wang & Yan, 2019). These are elements to consider in the accident analysis when assessing whether adequate safety culture in the organization within the scope of the improved accident causation model. Deficient in some of the elements that have been documented could demonstrate that there is weak safety culture that could contribute to an accident. Considering the impact of Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, safety culture is one of the elements that would be worth considering because some elements such as emergency response capability and safety managers' responsibility play a crucial role in the study.

A safety management system is the second component that is assessed by an improved accident causation model. Weakness in the safety management system is one of the root causes of accidents in the organization. Safety management system comprises of numerous elements which are safety objectives, safety accountabilities, management commitment to safety, hazard identification, risk assessment, risk mitigation, resource management, training and education, continuous monitoring of the safety and emergency response planning (Wang & Yan, 2019). These are specific elements that define the safety management system of the organization. For example, for the Exxon Valdez oil spill, it would be necessary to assess management commitment to safety, hazard, and risk assessment measures and measures deployed to enhance continuous safety monitoring which makes an improvement accident causation model appropriate for the presented case.

Third, individual factors that could potentially cause an accident are considered when an improved accident causation model is utilized. Some of the individual factors analyzed include flaws in the individual safety knowledge, individual safety habits, and individual safety awareness are essential factors that are used to analyze causes of the accidents (Wang & Yan, 2019). For example, for the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, it would be necessary to evaluate safety knowledge possessed by the captain, crew, and management because this would help to reinvent safety risk mitigation measures and identification that could prevent the occurrence of the accident or minimize the impact of an accident based individual factors identified.

The last component of an improved accident causation model is the analysis of unsafe acts and conditions which are critical in the accident process. For example, unrepaired oil tankers, incompetent crew, pipeline corrosion, poor maintenance of the pipeline, and poor investigation of hidden dangers are potential unsafe acts and conditions that can lead to oil spillage. Therefore, an improved accident causation model is ideal for investigating petroleum accident cases hence is suitable for the presented case study.

Background of the presented case: Exxon Valdez Oil Spillage

The oil discovery is known to positively contribute to human development and life in numerous ways. However, petroleum and related products are the major threat to the environment and ecosystem through oil spills and leakages and even fossil combustion. In the U.S history, Exxon Valdez oil spillage remains one of greatest disaster and accident which led to spillage of 11 million gallons of oil in the sea. The accident occurred on 24th march of 1989 with over 11 gallons of crude oil released to the Gulf of Alaska, hurting the economy badly and killing hundreds of thousands of species (Mambra, 2020). Exxon Valdez oil tanker was owned by a former Exxon shipping company. The tanker collided with Reef associated with broken radar that had not been repaired for the last year before oil and change of shipping route (Mambra, 2020). Oil spillage had a paramount negative effect on the marine ecosystem with hundreds of thousand species pronounced dead. However, Exxon Valdez oil spillage could be avoided or its impact minimized if there was an immediate response to the accident, radar has been repaired and the vessel had regularly been checked and employees were aware of safety measures, regulations with compliance safety regulations with safety management system enhanced.

Chronology of Events on the Case

On 24 March 1989, Exxon Valdez oil tanker crashed into Bling Reef in the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. Exxon Valdez formerly owned by Exxon Shipping Company, was on the way to Long Beach, California from Valdez Marine terminal when crashed into the reef at around midnight (Mambra, 2020). The tanker was carrying 54 million gallons of crude oil but when the accident occurred, 11 million gallons of crude oil was released into the waters of Prince William Sound.

Captain Hazelwood took the route, which was not prescribed under the normal shipping route, which is tantamount to a violation of Exxon Valdez shipping rules. Captain offered control to the incompetent Third Mate who failed to navigate through icebergs, the vessel left the shipping lane and eventually collided with a reef (Mambra, 2020). On the board, the vessel had limited crew to perform duties. After the occurrence of the accident, there was a delayed response to contain oil spillage and with strong waves and wind, oil spills spread to many areas to an extent that was beyond containment. Over 13,000 miles of coastline were contaminated. Eventually, thousands teamed up for the clean-up project with Exxon Mobil giving $2.1 billion for the clean-up exercise.

Relevant stakeholders In the Case

In the analysis of the Exxon Valdez oil spillage accident, three stakeholders play a significant role in the case. First, the management of Exxon Shipping Company shares the biggest portion of the blame because it is unthinkable how they let vessels run for a whole year when the radar is damaged (Mambra, 2020). This demonstrates a lack of management commitment to safety hence a weak safety management system. Similarly, delayed response to accidents questions preparedness of organization management to emergency response illustrates poor safety culture. The captain is another that plays a large role in the case because he lacks safety awareness when he hands over control of the vessel to incompetent Third Mate to navigate icebergs (Mambra, 2020). Lastly, crews on the board facilitate occurrences with no traces of individual knowledge about safety and safety habits. The crew does not raise alarm on the possible accident occurring nor did they demand adequate crew to help perform duties to satisfaction.

An immediate outcome of Case

When the oil tank crashed on the reef, 11 million gallons of crude oil were released on the water body. This badly damaged ecosystem with estimated 250,000 Sea birds, 2800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 280 bald eagles, and 22 whales to have died. Similarly, an unknown number of herring and salmon died. Further, oil spread and over 1300 miles of coastline were contaminated and fisheries for crab, herring, rockfish, salmon, and shrimp were closed in the area.

Long-term outcome of a case

The number of tourists visiting Alaska declined, clean-up operation running for three years, US-Congress passed a law requiring oil tankers in the U.S to double hulls and increased penalties for spills, Exxon embraced vibrant corporate social responsibility in its commitment to sustainability and subscribed to the first international standard corporate responsibility, ISO 26000 and lastly, Exxon embraced Valdez principles - standards implemented by the companies to regulate and monitor their operations on the environment (Lopez, 2009; Leahy, 2019).

Conclusion

Evaluating basic elements of an improved accident causation model, investigation reports for accidents were thorough and specific and related parties took specific and tough measures to prevent the occurrence of an accident of such magnitude. Therefore, an improved accident causation model is an effective model suitable to use on the accident analysis for cases on petroleum and related products just like Exxon Valdez oil spillage.

References

Leahy, S. (2019). Exxon Valdez changed the oil industry forever—but new threats emerge. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/oil-spills-30-years-after-exxon-valdez

Lopez, A. (2009). 20 years on from Exxon Valdez: what progress for corporate responsibility? Retrieved from http://www.ethicalcorp.com/communications-reporting/20-years-exxon-valdez-what-progress-corporate-responsibility

Mambra, S. (2020). The Complete Story of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. Retrieved from https://www.marineinsight.com/maritime-history/the-complete-story-of-the-exxon-valdez-oil-spill/

U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2019). Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries Summary, 2019. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cfoi.nr0.htm

Wang, J., & Yan, M. (2019). Application of an Improved Model for Accident Analysis: A Case Study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(15), 2756. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16152756