This article was written by Carsten Busch, Safety Mythologist and Historian. The “Indiana Jones of Safety.” Experienced safety, quality, and productivity enabler.
carsten@mindtherisk.com
It was translated from Dutch to English using Google Translator and Grammarly. I follow Carsten on LinkedIn as he, too, is a defender of H.W. Heinrich. He was kind enough to allow me to share this with the SAFTENG community. You can follow him on LinkedIn using the link above; you won’t be disappointed.
On the occasion of the NVVK anniversary (Dutch Association for Safety Science), we are looking at a classic that has enormously influenced our field: Industrial Accident Prevention, A Scientific Approach, by Herbert William Heinrich. Most safety experts have come into contact with Heinrich’s work or a derivative of it, whether consciously or not, in the course of their careers.
Heinrich spent most of his career working for Travelers Insurance, one of the largest insurers in the United States. He was also involved in various other activities, such as a working group that drew up a standard for reporting accidents and various committees commissioned by the government to guarantee and improve occupational safety during the Second World War. Heinrich was an exceptionally active speaker at (security) conferences and congresses; he wrote over fifty articles and several books1. He did not limit himself to safety; his work during the 1940s was almost exclusively about management and leadership, in general, and applied to safety and production.
It will surprise many, but Industrial Accident Prevention is actually primarily a management book. The book, which has appeared in no less than five editions (the last one almost 20 years after the author’s death2), contains many practical instructions about shielding machines, workplace lighting, and company emergency response. However, the core of all versions is in the first chapters, which are about steering accident prevention and are primarily aimed at (top) management.
The first edition appeared in 1931. The book’s core was based on a handful of articles written between 1926 and 1929. These contain some of the subjects for which Heinrich is best known:
