Audit meaning

In the area of business economics, the notion of an audit means verifying the condition of a business (or company) or an integral part of one of the organizational units. Results of such verification must be recorded in various forms. 

Safety Audit means an examination of a motor carrier s operations to provide educational and technical assistance on safety and the operational requirements of the FMCSRs and applicable HMRs and to gather critical safety data needed to make an assessment of the carrier s safety performance and basic safety management controls. Safety audits do not result in safety ratings. 

Checks on waste removal. (Whilst a producer is under no obligation to audit his waste s final destination, such a visit is a prudent means of demonstrating the steps taken to prevent subsequent illegal treatment of the waste.)... 

You can do this by providing the evidence of previous audit results and problems reported by other means. 

By producing defining specifications that prescribe requirements for products or services and also the means by which these requirements are to be verified in-house in terms of the inspections, tests, analyses, audits, reviews, evaluations, and other means of verification... 

Within your procedures you need to provide a means of identifying which items have been subject to inspection at the subcontractor s premises and the receipt inspection action to be taken depending on the level of that inspection. In one case, the product may have been accepted by your representative on the subcontractor s premises. In another case, a product from the same batch may have been accepted by your representative but not the one that has been delivered. Alternatively your representative may have only performed a quality audit to gain a level of confidence. You need to specify the inspection to be carried out in all such cases. The standard emphasizes that consideration should also be given to the recorded evidence provided. Even if someone has performed inspection at the subcontractor s premises, if there is no evidence of conformance the inspections are of little value. The fact that an inspection was carried out is insufficient. There has to be a statement of what was checked and what results were obtained and a decision as to whether conformance has been achieved. Without such evidence you may need to repeat some of the inspections carried out on the subcontractor s premises. 

You can show compliance with this requirement by defining where the auditors fit into the organization by means of an organization chart and by giving position titles in the reports of the audit. 

Use auditing as a means of familiarizing staff with the operations of the organization. 

Audit your procedures immediately following their issue as a means of testing their auditability. 

Maximum usefulness and focus on end use. Remember that the PSM assessment phase is a means to an end the design and installation of a workable PSM system within your company. This means you may want to gather information that might otherwise not be included in comparable studies, audits, or reviews, e.g., data concerning resource allocations and requirements. If so, these considerations should be factored into both selection of your assessment method and the specific design of the tools you select. 

What does it really mean to do well on such audits i.e. what evaluation criteria are being used ... 

In subsequent sections the application of PIFs to various aspects of error reduction will be described. One of the most important of these applications is the use of comprehensive lists of PIFs as a means of auditing an existing plant to identify problem areas that will give rise to increased error potential. This is one aspect of the proactive approach to error reduction that forms a major theme of this book. This application of PIFs can be used by process workers as part of a participative error reduction program. This is an important feature of the human factors assessment methodology (HFAM) approach discussed in Section 2.7. 

If reviewers of completed forms are not the preparer, they need to be trained in procedures to audit the quality of the collected information and documentation files. This training may include means to check the completeness and credibility of the collected data by cross checking the data against other reference files, such as maintenance files or operating logs. 

These checklists may be used to indicate compliance with standard procedures. As indicated above, a checklist is easy to use and can be applied to each stage of a project of plant development. A checklist is a convenient means of communicating die minimal acceptable level of liazard evaluadon diat is required for any Job, regardless of scope. As such, it is particularly useful for an inexperienced engineer to work tlirougli die various requirements in the checklist to reach a satisfactory conclusion. However, a system checklist should be audited and updated regularly. 

Only four of tiie 10 countries— Australia, Estonia, Malaysia and the Netherlands —operate an audit system to evaluate the GMP performance of inspectors or the inspectorate. Auditing of distribution-channel inspection is carried out by Malaysia, the Netherlands, Uganda and Venezuela. In Australia, GMP audit is both internal and external, and involves an extensive review of process and technical approach. Further training, advice, revision of job description, legal proceedings and dismissal of inspectors are some of the means used to correct any weaknesses observed. 

Peer review This involves setting up mechanisms for mutual review of dmg regulation systems. It serves as a means of external auditing, whereby the performance of one agency can be compared with that of others. Systems for international peer comparison of QC laboratories are one example. Proficiency tests are performed by the participating laboratories in such a way that each laboratory learns how well it is performing in comparison with the others. 

The electronic data capture systems that have become commonplace in the research and analytical laboratory allow rapid and efficient acquisition, manipulation, and reporting of vast amounts of scientific data. In addition, they have provided a means to generate a permanent audit trail which describes the conditions under which a... 

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