Background – Why develop an industry Wide Incident Database?

New Zealand forest owners and forestry contractors are continually striving to improve safety and productivity in their workplaces. One way we can do this is to continually review health and safety performance, using incident data provided by as many companies as possible. In 2005, the NZ Forest Owners Association, with support from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), launched the Incident Reporting Information System (IRIS). In 2008, it was made more user-friendly and new features were added.

The objectives of IRIS are to facilitate injury prevention analysis, to promote safety improvement initiatives and monitor their effectiveness in terms of incident rates. IRIS also allows the industry and individual companies to quickly and effectively benchmark their health and safety performance against other sectors and industries, both nationally and internationally.

Today the database contains a significant amount of data, a large proportion of which relates to close calls or unsafe behaviours. This information has been successfully used to continually refine and reinforce safe work practices in the industry.

All companies in the New Zealand forestry sector, whether or not they belong to an industry association, are encouraged to participate in IRIS. There is no cost to sign on. Access to add, edit, view and export incident data is via secure login. The data relating to each participant is confidential to the company concerned.

Once your login account is established, you can begin inputting data and view the latest accident trend summaries for both your company and the industry as a whole. New user support and training is available upon request.

The system has a high degree of flexibility. Users can add incident records individually or upload multiple records using the CSV upload facility. A data export facility allows a company to download either their own or industry data for closer analysis. Importantly, when industry data is exported, the information is aggregated so that individual companies cannot be identified.

IRIS members and visitors to the IRIS website also have access to Safety Alerts. These ‘heads-ups’ keep managers, team leaders and others aware of areas of concern, such as emerging incident trends or the factors that may have contributed to a recent accident.

If you are interested in contributing to IRIS or would like more information, please contact the application manager Pat Kirk on 07 345 3649 or 0272 463 548.