BSCAT Barrier-Based Incident Analysis

A truly practical, risk-based approach

Consequence Missing Barrier Effective Barrier Potential consequence Threat

Threat Failed Barrier

Immediate cause Basic cause Management system factor

The BSCAT method refers to a method that links modern riskbased safety management approaches to systematic root cause incident investigation. The B refers to barrierbased as each barrier identified in bowtie risk assessments is tested for why it failed.

SCAT is Systematic Cause Analysis Technique, a well-established root cause analysis approach which incorporates the DNV loss causation model. The model is a sequence of dominos establishing the hierarchy of accident progression from the immediate cause back to fundamental root causes and system failures. In short - BSCAT is the barrier based extension to DNVs SCAT method. The SCAT model (Systematic Cause Analysis Technique) was developed to help incident investigators apply the DNV loss causation model to actual events. This is done by means of the SCAT chart. The chart was created to buildout an event using standardized event descriptions that can fit the whole range of incidents and near misses. Due to using a standardized list, incident analyses are suitable to aggregation, leading to more insight into the weak areas of your safety management system. A barrier-based accident investigation still applies the SCAT model but now it is applied to each barrier separately, not to the incident as a whole. The BSCAT chart is the latest update of the SCAT approach. It includes all the historical occupational safety topics and underlying causes, but has added process risks to the list (e.g. fires and explosions) and in general more suitable to barrier analysis. The BSCAT software allows you to reuse and link existing risk assessment information (bowties) and do full integration of incident analysis and risk

analysis. If applicable bowtie diagrams are available for use during your investigation, you can bring events and barriers from the bowtie directly into your BSCAT analysis. This results in a better fit between incident and risk assessment analysis, which in turn allows you to improve the risk assessment. The mismatch between risk analysis and incident analysis referred to above, is usually in the perspective/abstraction level of the defined barriers barriers in incident analyses tend to be described too specifically, and there less mappable onto the barriers in your risk assessments. By reusing the bowtie risk analysis and/or describing the barriers in your incident analyses at the same abstraction level, this gap is bridged and more value is extracted from your incident analyses. This entire process allows you to gauge barrier effectiveness and availability based on real-world information extracted from the incident analyses.

Learn more about BSCAT today

BSCAT training and competency development services are available from DNV today. BSCAT is available now, also as a 30-day evaluation license. Receive a free, live 45-minute minitraining via the web Please call +31 88 100 1350 today for more information about BSCAT, e-mail info@bscat.org or visit www.bscat.org.