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Simulated workplace
Scenario · Quality and Safety

Investigate the grinder guard near miss

You are the WHS Coordinator assisting the Quality and Safety Manager.

Intermediate3 to 4 hours8 tasks
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The situation

What has happened

On 9 September 2026 an apprentice in Bay 2 removed the guard from an angle grinder to fit a cutting disc and started the grinder before refitting the guard. The leading hand stopped the apprentice before the disc touched the work. The event is entered in the WHS incident register as INC-26-037 and is under investigation. A guard failure on a grinder can throw a shattered disc at high speed, so Rohan Pillai treats this as a high potential near miss. He wants an investigation that looks at the grinder, the guard availability, the apprentice's training and supervision and the pressure on the job, not simply at the apprentice's decision.

Your brief. Conduct the investigation under the incident reporting procedure, gather facts from the people and records involved, identify direct and system causes, and produce an investigation report with corrective actions, owners and dates, updating the register and preparing a toolbox talk to share the lesson.
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Tasks

Deliverables

  • Interview notes for the apprentice and the leading hand
  • Investigation report with direct and system causes
  • Corrective action list with owners and due dates
  • Updated register entry INC-26-037
  • Toolbox Talk Record for the incident alert

Documents to use

Systems to use

WHS Incident and Hazard Register

Records injuries, near misses, hazards and environmental events at every site with investigation status and corrective actions.

Plant and Equipment Register

Lists workshop machines, cranes, welding sets, measuring equipment and site tools with inspection, calibration and service status.

Training and Competency Matrix

Holds each worker's licences, welder qualifications, inductions and training with expiry dates so supervisors can allocate work to people who are current.

Job Card Register

Tracks every fabrication, machining and maintenance job from quote to close-out with customer, drawing, hours and status.

For trainers and assessors

Units of competency

Current on training.gov.au for the Manufacturing and Engineering as at 10 September 2026.

MEM13006Collect and evaluate work health and safety data for an enterprise or section of an enterprise
MEM13020Supervise work health and safety in an industrial work environment
MEM16006Organise and communicate information
MEM16010Write reports
MEM16011Communicate with individuals and small groups

Qualifications

MEM40119Certificate IV in Engineering
Assessor notes

What to look for

Evidence guide

A strong response separates facts from opinions, identifies system causes beyond the apprentice's action (for example, guards that must be removed to change discs, no spare guards, apprentice working unsupervised under time pressure) and proposes engineering or administrative controls with realistic owners. The toolbox talk should be de-identified. Check the register entry status and fields are correctly updated.

The student's evidence summary lists every record they created or changed in the systems named above, their notes and the tasks they ticked. Verify it against the deliverables and your own assessment tool.