Safety

By Bobby Purvis

One of my favorite quotes is by Ezra Taft Benson , “ It is better to prepare and prevent than it is to repair and repent .”

Prevention is always better , more accessible , cheaper , and safer than remediation — whether we ’ re talking vehicle maintenance or personal protective equipment ( PPE ). Take the time to double check your safety items and fix or replace any that are in need . One solution that can aid in preventing incidents is conducting a safety audit .

Safety audits are primarily to check the effectiveness of the various programs , they do not take the place of regular facility inspections . Facility safety inspections for hazards and their control should be performed every week by supervisors and every month by management .

There are four basic questions a safety audit should answer . The person or team designated to conduct the audits should take a fact-finding approach to gather data . These auditors should be familiar with both company programs and the various local , state and federal requirements .

1 . Does the program cover all regulatory and best industry practice requirements ? 2 . Are the program requirements being met ? 3 . Is there documented proof of compliance ? 4 . Is employee training effective ? Can and do they apply specific safe behaviors ?

A well-designed field audit By talking to customers and industry analysts over the years , I ’ ve come to believe that a well-designed field audit program must , at a minium , support and achieve the following : data access , an audit database , data automation , effective distribution , an interactive review process , and next-generation mobile auditing .

Four recommendations for your field audit A well-designed field audit can provide a wealth of insights to strengthen business performance in organizations . However , each audit is only as good as the processes , people and technology involved .

1 . Automation and integration . Save time and costs by finding a way to automate your field audit workflows . Auditors should ideally be free to focus on important processes such as analyses of findings and issues , rather than tiresome data entry and formatting tasks . Integration of field audits with other processes in the audit lifecycle is also important . Many organizations are adopting a centralized system to manage the entire audit lifecycle , thereby ensuring better consistency , control over and visibility into audit processes and data .

2 . Mobility . Mobile audits simplify and expedite audit processes and fieldwork by doing away with papers and spreadsheets . Field auditors have the flexibility to enter data anytime and anywhere , while also capturing images and videos via camera-enabled tablets . These files can be used to support evidence of audit findings . Meanwhile , GPS-enabled mobile audit devices can capture the geospatial coordinates of the field location , thus improving the accuracy of audit data . If there is no network connectivity in the field , offline audit capabilities can help auditors enter and save data as they usually do , and later sync the finding with a central audit database .

3 . Real-time visibility . Maintaining all audit work papers in a single point of reference makes it easy and convenient for field auditors to manage , store , access , download and assign these documents . Similarly , with multiple field audits taking place at different locations across the enterprise , it is important to have a centralized and real-time picture of each field audit . Audit managers need to be able to monitor the progress of the audit against pre-defined milestones to ensure that each activity is on track . Quick audit reporting is essential as well — field auditors must be able to compile and report their findings as

26 OPE Business April 2023 www . OPEBusiness . com