By S. S. Suarez
What’s the difference between inspection and audit? Are they the same banana? Or are we talking about apples and oranges?
Some safety officers I know seem to have mistaken one for the other. Others think that inspection is part of audit or vice versa. I know some safety officers who claim to be conducting safety audits but what they are actually doing is a safety inspection. So what is the real score?
We should not be confused between the two. There are similarities as well as differences between these two essential activities of a safety officer.
To find out how they are similar, I have listed 5 points:
1) Checklists. Both use checklists. To fill-up the inspection checklist, the safety officer uses his five senses: sense of hearing , sense of sight, sense of smell, sense of touch and sense of taste. Inspection is condition-based. For audit, the safety officer prepares an audit checklist that is process-based, meaning it follows the PDCA cycle (plan-do-check-act).
2) Planned or unscheduled. Both can be periodic exercises, meaning schedules can be set and target areas for inspection and audit are properly notified. Surprise inspection and audit can be also done by safety officers to know how others in the organization perform without warning and see directly what happens.
3) Point of reference. Both activities refer to national and local performance standards, legislative and professional requirements.
4) Identify potential problems. Both have the same objectives. Inspection and audit are tools to identify potential problems in facilities, equipment and processes. These tools assist the organization to come up with preventive actions to potential problems.
5) Identify inadequacies in remedial actions. There are inspection and audit findings that require corrective action. But some of these corrective actions can be inadequate. Inspection and audit allows us to check and review previous inspection and audit findings and action plans for their adequacy and effectiveness.
On the other hand, here are how they are different:
1) Condition-based vs. Systems-based. Inspection is more of physical observation by examining closely any equipment or facility. The safety officer uses his five senses to check the condition of the facility and equipment. On the other hand, audit is the verification of process, system, policies or procedures.
2) Method of reporting. Inspection is based on planned schedule without an opening meeting that can be found in audits. Inspection reports are submitted to concerned area supervisor or committee for proper actions. Audits however require closing meetings to allow the auditor and the auditees to discuss the findings in a more formal setting.
3) Evaluating and using the data. Inspection reports are analyzed to check on equipment deficiencies. The inspector finds out the conditions that led to the equipment deficiencies. Auditors will use a collective data to check the total efficiency and reliability of the total maintenance management program.
4) Causal analysis. Inspection helps the safety officer to determine the immediate causes of an incident/accident. It examines the substandard conditions that led to the incident. Meanwhile, audit allows the safety officer to trace the basic or root causes why immediate causes such as substandard conditions and substandard acts happened. Audit goes deeper by knowing why systems failed.
5) Different timeline. Inspections are done in three stages - incoming, in-process, final. Audits are done after an activity is completed.
Hope this helps.
