RMS-Incident (RMS = Risk Mitigation System) has been developed by SafetyPort BV in The Netherlands and you can get a lot more information about it by clicking here.

I welcome suggestions to include additional subjects in this website. Contact me at

Basically Simple

To learn from accidents and incidents you need at least two things:

1. an accident or incident or any event that could or does result in loss
2. a system to allow learning from what happened and why. It is this system that is the focus of this website.

Number 1 is easy and you do not have to do anything. Just wait for things to happen and keep your fingers crossed that these will not put you out of business or cause irrevocable human, material of environmental loss.

If you have only very few accidents to learn from, maybe your accident definition is too narrow and you should broaden it. Or you can use such techniques as accident imaging or incident recall.

Number 2 is something you have to work at. You will have to set up a process (see: "accident investigation protocol example"), communicate this within your organization, instruct and train people as necessary and evaluate or "audit" implementation and results, at least annually.

The basic model

The model on which the RMS-Incident software is based is shown below. Originally this "domino model" or "domino sequence" was set up by Heinrich / Lateiner but was, during the late sixties of last century, upgraded by Frank E. Bird, Jr to make the bridge between the event with its consequences and the management system. This relation can also be found in the background of such standards as ISO 14000, ISO 9000, OHSAS 18000 as well as in industry standards and legislation. 

This accident causation model is a simplified 2-dimensional representation of real life situation. For communication purpose, however, it contains a powerful message: success or the lack of it is related to the quality of the management system! If the intention of the management system is to deliver success, then loss producing events (accidents/incidents) may indicate failure of that system. The model can also be applied to major elements of a HSE management system, such as the element of "Accident Investigation and Analysis" that is the subject of this website.

More information

Click on safety and accident information if you want to know a bit more about the background relevant to this website.

Use of accident investigation systems

Learning from accidents, is a must in any organization to reduce human suffering and unnecessary operational expenses.

Learning from events that could lead to undesired consequences, learning from incidents or "near-accidents", is even better as this offers opportunities to prevent the unwanted consequences. Unfortunately, practice shows that many, if not most near-miss incidents do not get reported for various reasons. Thus, opportunities for improvement are lost but this could be upgraded by using incident recall techniques.  

Preventing the undesired event through accident imaging and related risk assessment processes is far the best and a must in complex systems. Those are the events that could have a catastrophic impact on company, project, society or the environment. We know such events by their names: Piper Alpha, Three Mile Island, Bophal, Seveso, Mexico City, Tsjernobyl, Challenger, Herald of Free Enterprise, Ocean Ranger, Sandoz, etcetera. The question here is "what could happen if ..... and what then could be the consequnces?

The principles presented through this website apply to any accident or incident. Yet, for more complex systems/situations, more complex investigation techniques, or a mix of techniques may be required using a team approach in which investigation experts work together. Such techniques could possibly include: MORT (Management Oversight and Risk Tree), Arbre des causes (Causal Tree) and others.

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