Inspection checklists help business owners and employees prevent accidents and minimize downtime. They also help you meet regulatory standards, promote workplace safety, improve preventive maintenance planning, and improve communication across departments.
The Role of Inspection Checklists
As tools used to outline quality standards and provide objective criteria for inspecting business processes, products, and facilities - inspection checklists can help ensure you meet regulatory standards and customer expectations.
What Makes a Proper Inspection Checklist?
Inspection checklists act as a foundation for safety programs and help businesses gather necessary insights to discover potential hazards, equipment malfunction, unsafe working conditions, or improper staff training, among others. A proper inspection checklist should have these characteristics:
- Easy to use - An inspection checklist should be simple and easy to use, with items placed in a logical order of equipment inspection.
- Specific - An inspection checklist should be specific to the type of equipment that needs to be checked.
- Clear - An inspection checklist should be written in a clear format so that everyone can use it.
- Comprehensive - An inspection checklist should be comprehensive and include all the details for every asset.
Items on your inspection checklists should be based on issues your employees frequently find and can include anything from recurring problems to daily issues and critical items. Don't forget to keep checklists short and focused (10-20 checkpoints) so the inspector can focus on the essential items. Also, organize the checklist by room or area and continually look through and review it regularly.
Take Away
Safety inspections ensure equipment, facilities, and processes are safe and ensure the well-being of employees. They shouldn't be viewed as a burden but as an opportunity to reduce costs, improve productivity, and gain a competitive advantage. Inspections reveal problems early when they are still relatively easy and inexpensive to fix.
Checklists have always been available on paper, but now they are also a key part of inspection software. With software, inspections can be performed on mobile and other smart devices, and the data is immediately saved and assimilated for easy reporting.