Safety audits and inspection are about much more than compliance. They keep people safe, help lower maintenance costs, and improve operational efficiency.

But the importance of compliance with safety regulations can’t be overstated. Compliance will always be high on the list of reasons why regularly performing and documenting audits and inspections is smart business.

But how do you get the documentation part right?

Of course it’s essential to perform audits and inspections properly, but documentation is how you prove compliance. Without it, even the safest companies can be subject to regulatory fines and exposed to liability. However, manually documenting auditing/inspecting results can take time if it’s done well.

Efficient compliance documentation is about more than recording audit/inspection results in the field. It’s also about storing those results in the most cost-effective way possible.

Supervisors need to be able to see that the audits/inspections are being done, and done correctly. And if companies are ever visited by safety regulators, it’s very beneficial to be able to provide inspectors with proof of compliance on short notice.

This means that the information that proves compliance should be stored in a way that makes it easy to retrieve. But this storage process can be costly and time-consuming, involving lots of copying, filing, and spreadsheet data entry.

Fortunately, there is a way to reduce this cost and time investment—audit/inspection software.

Audit/inspection software, such as The Checker Software, allows companies that understand the importance of easily accessed compliance information to store their information as soon as its recorded in the field. The labor involved in copying, filing, and/or data entry is eliminated, along with any labor involved in disseminating this information to direct supervisors and others who need to know it, such as H&S or compliance managers.

This data archiving capability has much value beyond allowing organizations to internally assure compliance and quickly prove compliance to external inspectors. The results of safety audits and inspections can be used to improve safety, guide proactive maintenance, help with equipment scheduling, set budgets, and much more.

But the ability to easily and quickly store and retrieve compliance documentation shouldn’t be overlooked because it’s such a “simple” process. It may seem simple, but it does take a lot of time and effort without the aid of software tools.

Takeaway

Being able to track and prove compliance is a basic, but vital, purpose of audits and inspections. Audit/inspection software makes this task much easier and provides labor cost savings that more than justify the cost of using the software.

^{Upper image courtesy of nyphotographic.com, Creative Commons; Lower image courtesy of doual'art, Creative Commons.}