Challenge
Origin Energy is the upstream operator for Australia Pacific LNG and is responsible for the development of its Coal Seam Gas (CSG) fields in the Surat and Bowen basins and the main transmission pipeline that transports the gas to the LNG facility on Curtis Island near Gladstone.
An effective incident investigation process is widely recognised as one of the cornerstones of any HSE management system, but at the same time incident investigations can take up a lot of time and energy within an organisation, particularly a large company like Origin Energy.
Investigating minor incidents and near misses is important because they are often a warning sign of the potential for more significant incidents to occur. However it’s not uncommon for large/medium size organisations to have an incident investigation tool that is designed primarily for significant incidents, and they find it impractical to undertake the same level of analysis for all lower severity incidents due to the higher volume and time it would take to investigate them.
At the time, Origin Energy’s Integrated Gas business heavily utilised Incident Cause Analysis Method (ICAM) for HSE incident investigations, with the Origin Collective Intelligence System (OCIS) configured to record completion of a mandatory Basic, Summary or Full Investigation. Feedback from employees involved in incident investigations revealed that they found this to be time consuming and administrative.
The supply chain of Origin Energy’s Integrated Gas business is comprised of a diverse range and large number of contractor companies, many of whom are small/medium size enterprises. Many smaller organisations have limited incident investigation tools and capability.
Solution
The team at Origin Energy decided to lead the development of an e-Learn tool within the Safer Together community of member companies, aimed at helping people to develop the skills needed to implement a simple, practical, cost- and time-effective process that could be applied at the work site, by Origin Energy staff and contractors, and yet still carry out an effective incident investigation.
The 5 Whys e-Learn tool provides training in a simple problem-solving technique aimed at improving incident investigation outcomes. It’s a simple but powerful tool that allows you to dissect a problem and reveal its underlying causes quickly. If used effectively, it can improve incident investigations and assist in the improvement of work practices, operational procedures and workplace safety culture.
There’s nothing technical or complex about the 5 Whys process – anyone with young children will tell you that kids are experts in diligently applying this technique! It’s this simplicity that makes the 5 Whys such an effective safety improvement tool. Start with a problem and ask why it is occurring. Make sure that your answer is grounded in fact, and then ask the question again. By repeatedly asking the question “Why?” (five is a good rule of thumb), you can peel away the layers of symptoms which can lead to the root cause of a problem.
Result
In 2021 Origin Energy adopted the 5 Whys e-Learn tool, integrated it into the company’s Learning Management System, and assigned it to those employees that are required to undertake incident investigations.
5 Whys has given Origin Energy a fit-for-purpose incident investigation tool for minor incidents which has proven to be useable by and understandable to their workforce. Moreover, for more significant incidents, the initial 5 Whys can be used to inform other types of more formal and detailed investigation techniques such as Root Cause Analysis, ICAM, or an in-depth 5 Whys / Causal Analysis.
It’s usually challenging for any company to convince a busy workforce to embrace a new safety initiative when first introduced, but Origin Energy’s workforce soon recognised the value of adopting 5 Whys, when they could see for themselves that it saved time and was still an effective way to undertake incident investigations.
Benefits realised include:
- Safer Together – the Integrated Gas team is now able to focus more attention on full investigations for serious/significant incidents, while still being able to investigate and understand the causal factors of minor incidents.
- More Efficient Together - With over 1,000 Integrated Gas incidents a year loaded in OCIS (and 90% of them being rated as minor incidents), by including 5 Whys on the first OCIS tab Origin Energy has been able to:
- record the learnings by the frontline for all incidents within 4 hours of the incident occurring, and therefore kick-start the learning/sharing process much earlier; and
- remove the previous requirement for OCIS Summary investigations to be conducted (there were approximately 700 conducted in FY 2016/17).
- Continually Improving Together – This learning initiative was the first of its type for Integrated Gas and has been a success not only in the field, but also in the corporate office for other teams that are not operationally hands-on with HSE incident reporting. Accordingly, Integrated Gas has seen some great learnings appear in OCIS as an output of 5 Whys, from teams such as Finance and Supply & Technology, as well as business learnings for Integrated Gas Core Processes.
Feedback from the frontline workforce has been positive:
“After the 5 Whys was rolled out it took a little time to get used to the process and ensure our contractors were involved as this allowed them to also use it instead of having to undertake a basic investigation. In no time the contractors were on board, and joining in on the development of the 5Whys with the workers on site. The bonus of this was that it involved the people directly related to the incident and that had first-hand knowledge of what occurred.” (Wellsite Representative)
Lessons Learnt
Phone a Friend – Being involved in Safer Together means you are part of an active safety community. Reach out to a company that has adopted and rolled out 5 Whys to get some guidance from them.
Sell the Sizzle – Build some awareness within your company and get your operations teams on board before you introduce the e-Learn module. Explain where it comes from, what the benefits of adopting it are, and how it fits into your company’s overall Learning Management System (LMS).
Invest for Success – Take the time to lead the 5 Whys incident investigations when first introduced, to coach and support your frontline workforce gain a good understanding of how to effectively apply the process.
Download the Case Study Poster here.
For more information about Origin Energy.