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Industrial Engineering & Manufacturing vocabulary · Plant Safety

Near miss

Meaning in industrial engineering & manufacturing, with examples

nounCore term

In industrial engineering & manufacturing, near miss means: An unplanned event that could have caused injury or damage but did not, such as a box falling from a rack where someone had just been standing.

In Turkish: ramak kala, ramak kala olay

How it is used

Workers are encouraged to report near misses, because they share the same causes as real accidents. Safety teams log, investigate and track them; a high number of reports usually means a healthy safety culture, not a dangerous plant.

Example sentences

  1. I'd like to report a near miss: a forklift came round the corner too fast and almost hit a visitor.

  2. We received 58 near miss reports this month, more than ever before.

Common collocations

  • report a near miss
  • near miss report
  • near miss investigation
  • near miss board
  • hazardAnything that could cause harm, injury or ill health, such as moving machine parts, chemicals, noise, electricity or a wet floor.
  • risk assessmentA careful review of a task or area to find the hazards, judge how likely and how serious harm would be, and decide what controls are needed.
  • root cause analysisA structured way of finding the deepest reason for a problem, so that it can be fixed for good instead of only treating the symptoms. Often shortened to RCA.
  • PPEShort for personal protective equipment: safety glasses, gloves, helmets, ear protection, safety shoes and other gear that protects workers from hazards.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Plant Safety

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