The software tool storybuilder and the analysis of the horrible stories of occupational accidents

To construct models for quantifying occupational risk for the Workgroup Occupational Risk Model (WORM) project for the Ministry SZW in the Netherlands, scenarios had to be built from accident histories. For this purpose the storybuilder has been developed, tailor-made software that provides a totally new way of analysing and presenting accident data. It enables details of hundreds of accidents to be captured on a single screen by building event structures and accident pathways through the structure. The mode of presentation combines graphics similar to fault and event trees with text boxes and lines which follow the individual accident pathways (“horrible stories”). The data are quantified by counting the number of pathways through a node (box) or combinations of nodes. The results make facts and figures information available about occupational accidents from a database of around 9500 analysed investigation reports from the Dutch Labour Inspectorate 1998–2004 presented in 36 storybuilds, one for each type of occupational accident e.g. struck by moving vehicle, fall from ladder, contact with moving parts of a fixed machine. Some examples are presented.