7.8 A suggested guide for planned inspections
Step 1.
Decide who is responsible for day-to-day administration of inspections
The first step is to determine who is the most appropriate person to be in charge of the inspection process. This will vary according to the type of inspection as employees at different levels will have different responsibilities. Inspection activities may take place daily, weekly or at longer intervals.
Daily duties:
Area supervisors and maintenance personnel conduct checks of the tools and workspace that they regularly use and are responsible for. Supervisors may also request suggestions from employees in their various workstations.
Weekly duties:
Department Heads ensure that safety checks have been implemented and documented. May discuss safety concerns with supervisors and staff and monitor effectiveness of safety policies and procedures.
Monthly duties:
Supervisors, department heads, the safety department, and safety and health committees meetings may be held to share feedback from all parties regarding safety issues and concerns.
The safety department also may be actively involved in monthly, quarterly, semi-annual and annual inspections.
Step 2.
Plan the inspection
Inspections should be scheduled at a time that will allow maximum opportunity to view operations and work practices, with minimal interruption to normal operating procedure. The route that inspectors will take through the workplace should be planned in advance to ensure that disruption is kept to a minimum.
Before making an inspection, the inspector or inspection team should review all accidents that have occurred in the area. At this meeting, inspectors should discuss where they are going and what they are looking for. During the inspection itself, it will be necessary to "huddle" before going into noisy areas in order to avoid arm waving, shouting, and other unsatisfactory methods of communication.
In addition to the regular checklist and accident reports, inspectors should have copies of the previous inspection report for that particular area. Reviewing this report makes it possible to check whether earlier recommendations have been followed and hazards corrected.
Those making inspections should wear the protective equipment required in the areas they enter; safety glasses and shoes, hard hats, acid-proof goggles, protective gloves, respirators, gas masks and so forth. If inspectors do not have, and cannot get, special protective equipment, they should not go into the area. They must be careful to "practise what they preach".
Inspectors should also be aware of any special hazards that they may encounter. For example, because welding crews and other maintenance crews move from place to place, they may be encountered anywhere in the plant. Inspectors should know what precautions are necessary where these crews are working.
Step 3.
Devise a Hazard Control Inspection Inventory
To determine what factors affect the inspection, a hazard control inspection inventory can be conducted. Such an inventory is the foundation upon which a program of planned inspection is based. It resembles a planned preventative maintenance system and yields many of the same benefits.
The entire facility, including yards, building, equipment, machinery, and vehicles, should be divided into areas of responsibility. Once these areas have been determined, they should be listed in an orderly fashion. A colour-coded map of the facility, or floor plan, might possibly be developed. It may be desirable to divide large areas or departments into smaller areas that can be assigned to each first-line supervisor and/or the hazard control department's inspector.
What Items Need To Be Inspected?
Once specific areas of responsibility have been determined, an inventory should be made of those items that may become unsafe or cause accidents. These would include:
- Environmental factors (illumination, dusts, gases, sprays, vapours, fumes, noise).
- Hazardous supplies and materials (explosives, flammables, acids, caustic, toxic materials or by-products).
- Production and related equipment (mills, shapers, presses, borers, lathes).
- Power source equipment (steam and gas engines, electrical motors).
- Electrical equipment (switches, fuses, breakers, outlets, cables, extension and fixture cords, grounds, connectors, connections).
- Hand tools (wrenches, screwdrivers, hammers, power tools).
- Personal protective equipment (hard hats, safety glasses, safety shoes, respirators).
- Personal service and first aid facilities (drinking fountains, wash basins, soap dispensers, safety showers, eyewash fountains, first aid supplies, stretchers).
- Fire protection and extinguishing equipment (alarms, water tanks, sprinklers, standpipes, extinguishers, hydrants, hoses).
- Walkways and roadways (ramps, docks, sidewalks, walkways, aisles, vehicle ways).
- Elevators, electric stairways and man-lifts (controls, wire ropes, safety devices).
- Working surfaces (ladders, scaffolds, catwalks, platforms, sling chairs).
- Material handling equipment (cranes, dollies, conveyors, hoists, forklifts, chains, ropes, slings).
- Transportation equipment (automobiles, railway cars, trucks, front-end loaders, helicopters, motorised carts and buggies).
- Warning and signalling devices (sirens, crossing and blinker lights, klaxons, warning signs).
- Containers (scrap bins, disposal receptacles, carboys, barrels, drums, gas cylinders, solvent cans).
- Storage facilities and areas both indoor and outdoor (bins, racks, lockers, cabinets, shelves, tanks, closets).
- Structural openings (windows, doors, stairways, sumps, shafts, pits, floor openings).
- Buildings and structures (floors, roofs, walls, fencing).
- Miscellaneous - any items that do not fit in preceding categories.
There are many sources of information regarding the items to be inspected. Maintenance employees know what problems can cause damage or shutdowns. The workers in the area are qualified to point to causes of injury, illness, damage, delays, or bottlenecks. Medical personnel in the organisation can list problems that cause job-related illnesses and injuries. Manufacturers' manuals often specify maintenance schedules and procedures and safe work methods.
Gathering the information about standards, regulations and codes is a necessary first step in determining what items need to be inspected. A great deal of work has usually already been done for a safety inspector. Each March the National Safety News publishes a list of occupational health and safety standards and references. This guide is arranged according to the various sub-parts of the OH&S Act's rules and regulations. It also lists related standards, checklists, and data sheets published by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), and Underwriters Laboratories Inc.
The amount of detail included in the checklist will vary, depending upon the inspector's knowledge of the relevant standards and the nature of the inspection. An experienced inspector with thorough knowledge of the standards will need only sufficient clues to remind him/her of the items to be inspected. Checklists for infrequent inspections generally will be more detailed than daily or weekly ones.
Checklists should have columns to indicate either compliance or action-date. Space should be provided to cite the specific violation, a way to correct it, and a recommendation that the condition receive more or less frequent attention. Whatever the format of the checklist, space should be provided for the inspector's signature and the inspection date.
Checklists can be prepared by the Health & Safety Committee, by the safety director, or by a sub-committee, which includes engineer, supervisors, employees and maintenance personnel. The safety professional and the department supervisor should monitor development of the checklists and make sure that they cover all applicable standards.
Step 4.
Choose the inspection route
Deciding on an appropriate inspection route ensures that an area is inspected completely and thoroughly while avoiding:
- Time-consuming backtracking and repetition;
- Long walks between items;
- Unnecessary interruptions to the production process;
- Distracting employees.
- Often a closed-loop inspection will give good results. Sometimes it may be valuable to follow the path of the material being processed.
Step 5.
Conduct the inspection, report the results and evaluate the inspection process.
The last step is to put all the preparation into action and conduct the inspection. Reporting the results of the inspection with recommendations for improvement of both safety and the inspection process itself is discussed in the next section.
How Often Must Items Be Inspected?
The frequency of inspection is determined by four factors:
A. What is the loss severity potential of the problem?
Ask yourself, "if the items or critical part should fail, what would happen?"
What injury, damage or work interruption would result? The greater the loss-severity potential, the more often the item should be inspected. Because a frayed wire rope on an overhead crane block has the potential to cause much greater loss than a defective wheel on a wheelbarrow, the rope needs to be inspected more frequently than the wheel.
B. What is the potential for injury to employees?
If the item or critical part should fail, how many employees would be endangered and how frequently? The greater the probability for injury to employees, the more often the item should be inspected. For example, a stairway used continually by many people needs to be inspected more frequently than one that is seldom used.
C. How quickly can the item or part become unsafe?
The answer to this question depends on the nature of the part and the conditions to which it is subjected. Equipment and tools that get heavy use can become damaged, defective, or worn more quickly than those rarely used. An item located in a particular spot may be exposed to greater damage than an identical item in a different location. The shorter the time in which it can become unsafe, the more frequently the item should be inspected.
D. What is the past history of failures? What were the results of these failures?
Maintenance and production records and accident investigation reports can provide valuable information about how frequently items have failed and the results in terms of injuries, damage, delays and shut-down. The more frequently it failed in the past and the greater the consequences, the more often the item needs to be inspected.
OH&S regulations require inspections at specific intervals. For example, manlifts require inspections at least every 30 days and limit switches every week. Frequency of inspections should also be described in specific terms such as before every use, when serviced, daily, monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
As a specific example, OH&S regulations dealing with cranes specify daily visual inspection of some aspects, monthly-signed reports, semi-annual inspection of standby cranes, and periodic inspection of other parts. According to OH&S regulations, the intervals depend on "the nature of the critical components of the crane and the degree of their exposure to wear, deterioration or malfunction". The portfolio of checklists has two inspection reports for cranes. These forms would meet the OH&S requirement for a monthly-signed report. Note that the critical parts are listed and the specific conditions named.
Activity 2
Plan and undertake a hazard inspection of a operational area within a transport and logistics business.
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