Plant safety inspections can be a vital part of injury prevention program that help in preventing incidents, injuries and illnesses. Through a critical observation of the workplace, inspections help to identify and record hazards so that corrective actions can be taken in a timely manner. It depends on the type of works involved that influences how often the inspections should be conducted and in order to understand how safety inspections can be planned, conducted, reported and monitored for continuous improvement, a more detailed methodology using
PDCA (Deming’s cycle) is explained:
Plan: Define the purpose of Inspection and set the objectives.
Do: Define an inspection strategy, conduct and collect observations, and perform the initial correction.
Check / Study: check and review data collected periodically; identify the areas of improvement.
Act: Give feedback, develop action plans, and make data-based decisions.
Planning is essential for an effective inspection. Inspections should be planned with the purpose of preventing injuries. The inspections should be planned in such a way that detailed critical observation of all areas particularly on which are most likely to develop into unsafe or unhealthy conditions shall be carried out looking at all elements of the workplace including the people, the environment, the equipment and the process.
Environmental hazards such as noise, vibration, lighting, temperature, and ventilation, Equipment including machinery, materials, tools and apparatus and the process involving the interaction of the worker with the other elements in a series of tasks or operations shall be inspected.
The first step in this phase is the development of a thorough inspection strategy. This strategy should include who does the inspection, when do we conduct an inspection and how frequent, what is to be observed, and where they are to be done.
Who does the inspection?
Safety inspections shall be carried out by the members of the Health and safety committee who has sound knowledge of regulations and procedures, knowledge of potential hazards and experience with work procedures involved.
A diverse team of inspection team including engineers, maintenance personnel, occupational hygienists, health and safety professionals, supervisors or managers may be a part of the inspection process.
When do we conduct an inspection and how frequent inspections should be done?
How often the inspections are conducted will depend on several factors such as:
- the frequency of planned formal inspections statutorily prescribed
- past accident statistics
- number and size of different work tasks involved
- type of equipment and work processes - those which are potentially hazardous
- if new procedures are evolved
- when new processes or machinery are equipped
Especially high risk areas should be given extra attention.
Types of inspections – a part of safety program
- Ongoing
- Pre-operation
- Periodic
Ongoing inspections are conducted by supervisors and workers continually as part of their job responsibilities. Ongoing inspections identify hazardous conditions correcting them immediately or report them for corrective action.
Pre-operation checks involve inspections of new or modified equipment or process installations. These are often done after workplace shutdowns and start ups.
Periodic inspections are regular and planned inspections of the critical components of equipment or systems that have more potential for causing serious injury or illness. These inspections are often a part of preventive maintenance program or hazard control programs. Certain types of equipment, such as elevators, boilers, pressure vessels, scaffolding, and fire extinguishers at determined points in the work process must be inspected at regular intervals by qualified or competent persons as statutorily prescribed.
What is to be examined and observed?
The inspection team should focus and examine the things that are most likely to develop into unsafe or unhealthy conditions. Especially Safety hazards such as those caused by inadequate machine guards, unsafe conditions and unsafe work practices have to be observed. Inspection shall be carried out by dividing the workplace into areas based on the process, visualizing the activities in the workplace and identifying the location of machinery, equipment and materials ensuring each risk are observed for evaluating the risk.
Use of Checklists
Checklists serve as important documents that help with on-the-spot recording of findings and provide a report of inspection activities. Keeping inspection records is important as past inspection records show what has been previously identified and let us know if the corrective actions are taken in a timely manner.
It’s necessary to have a follow up on the findings. Inspections have got no use if nothing gets corrected. There should be somebody assigned to develop a correction for each problem identified. Review the inspection reports to identify where corrective actions are needed and determine if these actions have been taken. Use older reports to identify trends and this analysis can be used as part of the continual improvement process
Checking the inspection reports may:
- Set priorities for other corrective action- Assign a priority level to the hazards observed and rate the hazards as “ABC “to indicate the urgency of the corrective action required. For example:
A = Major - requires immediate action
B = Serious - requires short-term action
C = Minor - requires long-term action
- Indicate the need for improving safe work practices
- Provide insight about why incidents are occurring in particular areas
- Assess the need for education and training in certain areas
- Find out the areas and equipment that require more in-depth hazard analysis
The last step in the continuous improvement cycle is action. Action talks about simple things, such as providing feedback or sharing information on trends and methods that have been seen and monitor the progress of the recommendations.
Developing a Continuous Improvement Cycle
Ongoing and periodic safety inspections and observations allow the continuous improvement cycle to keep going, making the safety program much better each time and ultimately help making sure that the entire workforce goes home safely at the end of the day.
Benefits of Safety Inspections
Inspections serve as an important tool as it helps us in
- listening to the concerns of workers and supervisors
- gaining further understanding of jobs and tasks
- identifying existing and potential hazards
- determining underlying causes of hazards
- recommending corrective and timely actions
- monitoring the steps to eliminate hazards or control the risk (e.g., engineering controls, administrative controls, policies, safe work procedures, personal protective equipment)
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