Port Safety: Seeing Accidents before They Happen

Despite increasing mechanisation, port operations remain labour-intensive and inherently high-risk. Port workers are routinely exposed to multiple hazards, including heavy machinery, hazardous chemicals, adverse weather conditions, slippery surfaces, excessive noise, and congested traffic environments.

Common port-related incidents include slips, trips, and falls, as well as collisions involving vessels or vehicles, and cargo-handling accidents. These incidents not only generate substantial direct costs (e.g., injuries, equipment damage, operational delays), but also indirect costs such as productivity loss, reputational damage, and regulatory penalties. In addition, ports face low-probability but high-impact risks including fuel and chemical spills, fires, and explosions, etc. Such serious consequences further highlight the importance of preparedness and effective emergency response planning.

Given the critical importance of preventing safety incidents, proactive intervention requires a systematic understanding of the cause-and-effect relationships that give rise to such events. Rather than focusing solely on isolated hazards or post-incident analyses, this case study demonstrates how safety incidents can be anticipated and intervened in advance by extracting and analysing causal information from real-world incident reports.

This case is designed for junior- and senior-level undergraduate students to develop an appreciation of data analytics in operations management. After completing this case, students will be able to identify and interpret cascading effects within causality networks, explain the implications of direct and indirect cause-effect relationships leading to undesired safety outcomes, link analytical findings to real-world incidents, and design and evaluate leading and lagging safety indicators.

Inspection copies and teaching notes are available for university faculty. To receive an inspection copy and teaching note, please email ccxshop@smu.edu.sg with your registered faculty email ID and a link to your contact information on the faculty directory at your university as verification. An inspection copy and teaching note will then be sent to your faculty email account.

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·      The Case (SMU-25-0038)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0038TN)

·      Teaching Supplement 1 (SMU-25-0038TS)

·      Teaching Supplement 2 (SMU-25-0038TS)

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·      The Case (SMU-25-0038)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0038)

·      Teaching Supplement 1 (SMU-25-0038)

·      Teaching Supplement 2 (SMU-25-0038)

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·      The Case (SMU-25-0038)

·      Teaching Note (SMU-25-0038)

·      Teaching Supplement 1 (SMU-25-0038)

·      Teaching Supplement 2 (SMU-25-0038)