Our Approach

We conducted a desktop analysis of ~50 Level pre-identified HIPO (SIFp) incidents using our SCALE© Analysis Process and ControlHealth Assessment (CHA) frameworks. This involved:

• Mapping incidents against key controls and performance standards.
• Evaluating control implementation ease/difficulty.
• Analysing human, operational, and organisational antecedents.
• Reviewing investigation quality and action effectiveness.
• Cross-referencing control verification to identify gaps and correlations.

This multi-layered approach enabled us to assess bothcontrol design and function, and to identify where procedural and behaviouralcontrols were most vulnerable.

Research and Insight

Key findings revealed significant opportunities forimprovement:

• 80% of control failures fell into four categories: driving behaviour (40%), inspection/maintenance (25%), journey management (10%), and missing vehicle tech (7%).
• 56% of failed controls led to workarounds; 41% resulted in mistakes due to perceived mismatch between hazard and control.
• Only 33% of control failures were covered by existing risk / control categories, meaning 67% were undefined.
• Tyre and wheel management and traffic/pedestrian segregation controls showed high verification gaps despite low incident frequency, suggesting hidden vulnerabilities.

Tangible Outcomes

In response, the organisation:

• Embedded control analysis into SIFp investigations, including ease/difficulty of implementation.
• Enhanced supervisor coaching on decision-making and pre-journey inspections.
• Strengthened vehicle operation competency for both employees and contractors.
• Updated procedures to mandate deeper causal analysis and SMART corrective actions.
• Initiated review of risk / control categories to better reflect real-world failure modes.
• Prioritised tyre integrity and vehicle monitoring systems in control design.

This data-driven strategy has helped this organisation betterunderstand control breakdowns and improve resilience in high-risk operationalcontexts.

To learn more about how Meta Incident Analysis andthe SCALE© Analysis Process can help uncover hidden risks and improvecontrol reliability in agricultural settings, contact the Incident Analytics team.

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