Compliance and asset maintenance are both critical success factors for businesses.

Whether it be safety regulations, environmental regulations, performance standards, or any other business requirement, organizations cannot afford the costs and risks of non-compliance.

Reducing the expense of maintenance programs is also an ongoing challenge for most businesses.

In both areas, audit/inspection checklists are invaluable tools. A good checklist ensures that all necessary items are checked for whatever is being audited or inspected, with the purpose of assuring compliance and prompting necessary maintenance.

The checklist then serves as documentation of the audit or inspection for regulators, management, the maintenance department, and other stakeholders.

But using paper checklists is no longer the ideal solution. As with so many other areas of business, software is now needed to gain the maximum possible efficiency and effectiveness in auditing and inspection processes.

Most professionals involved with compliance and maintenance understand this, and they want to implement software to help with audits and inspections. The problem is paying for it.

Budget-makers often don’t appreciate the potential value of a robust audit/inspection software solution. That’s why you have to show them.

Consider the Labor

You can demonstrate the value of software for audits and inspection processes in many ways, but one of the most simple and convincing is to do a labor cost calculation comparing the use of paper checklists with software checklists.

The specific dollar amounts will of course vary from company to company, and so you’ll need to do research to determine your actual costs. But everyone can use the same reasoning to arrive at their own estimate of the cost savings of software vs. paper checklists.

The focus in this calculation is the process of completing, distributing, and archiving audit/inspection results, as well as creating and communicating action steps for maintenance based on the results.

This process involves seven basic steps:

1. The actual audit or inspection, with completion of the checklist
2. Submission of the results to a supervisor
3. Submission of the results to maintenance
4. Creation of a maintenance work order
5. Submission of the work order to a service technician
6. Submission of the completed work order to maintenance by the technician
7. Filing of the checklist and completed work order for compliance documentation.

For each step, figure out how long it will take for each process using paper vs. software. Once you have the time difference between the two, use your labor rates to calculate what that means in actual labor costs.

Then multiply that amount by the number of audits or inspections you do in any given time period you’re considering. It will soon become apparent that there is a lot of labor cost involved in shuffling paper checklists and work orders around.

Paperwork has to be manually carried to wherever it needs to go. That might be down the hall, or it could be to another building at your facility. It might even have to be mailed or delivered to another location.

With software, you of course still have to do the audit or inspection and complete the checklist. And obviously the maintenance still has to be done. But the sharing and archiving of checklist results—as well as the sharing of maintenance work orders and job-completion status—can all be done simply by hitting the send button!

An Example Calculation

Let’s look at the time for each step in a hypothetical but typical operation.

Paper Checklists

1. The actual audit or inspection, with completion of the checklist (10 minutes)
2. Submission of the results to a supervisor (5 minutes)
3. Submission of the results to maintenance (5minutes)
4. Creation of a maintenance work order (5 minutes)
5. Submission of the work order to a service technician (5 minutes)
6. Submission of the completed work order to maintenance by the technician (5 minutes)
7. Filing of the checklist and completed work order for compliance documentation. (5 minutes)

Software Checklists

1. The actual audit or inspection, with completion of the checklist (10 minutes)
2. Submission of the results to a supervisor (0 minutes)
3. Submission of the results to maintenance ( 0 minutes)
4. Creation of a maintenance work order (5 minutes)
5. Submission of the work order to a service technician (5 minutes)
6. Submission of the completed work order to maintenance by the technician (0 minutes)
7. Filing of the checklist and completed work order for compliance documentation. (0 minutes)

With paper, the process takes 40 minutes. With software, it takes only 20. You’re cutting the labor time involved in half!

Once you do the calculations for your organization, you’ll be able to catch the attention of the budget-makers with the amount of money that can be saved. The cost of implementing an effective software solution will pale in comparison.

Takeaway

This calculation is only one of many ways to demonstrate the value of software for inspections and audits. And it doesn’t capture the full value of software solutions such as The Checker Software, which can be used in numerous ways to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of various compliance and maintenance processes.

But this basic labor cost-saving calculation speaks loudly and alone can justify an investment. Once you plug in your numbers, you’ll realize the tremendous amount of money that’s at stake!