Audit participants

There is a wide spectrum of philosophies regarding the level of participation required from the client. Some clients choose to remain at arm s length from the toll operation in an effort to establish a distinct separation of responsibilities. Such clients may audit the toller s HS E program on a periodic basis and do little else. 

In the last chapter we discussed the importance of well-defined roles. This holds true for the inspection team. For many larger sites a union contract may exist that may specify who participates in the inspec-tion/audit process. At smaller sites, this may be open-ended. We believe that the personnel make-up of an inspection team should depend on the size, complexity, number of employees, and on-site hazards at the site in question. Again, preplanning coupled with a common-sense approach should be the driver. 

The team should consist of members such as the PM, SS, safety department, training, maintenance, research, and however many others make sense for your site. If your site includes a building with a lot of activity, a representative who works in that building might be asked to participate in an inspection/audit. The team that audits might contain a variety of temporary participants. 

For example, if subcontractors are being utilized for the performance of a certain phase of work and will be on site only temporarily, a representative from the subcontractors might be asked to temporarily participate on the team. Even if each subcontractor does not have representation on the team, they should all be given results from the last audit and a contact person to notify if they observe anything that the team might find noteworthy. 

For consistency at least one auditor of the initial audit team should participate in all visits of a three-year cycle. By using the word should, the requirement is rendered non-mandatory and hence acknowledges that people may leave CBs. 

Consultants to the supplier cannot participate in the audit. The auditor needs to establish whether consultants are present and if so what role the supplier intends them to perform. Consultants can be observers but cannot answer questions posed by third party auditors. 

One way you can help minimize such bias is to involve more facility personnel in a PSM survey than would likely participate in a PSM audit. Broad distribution of a questionnaire among facility staff does not appreciably add to the level of effort required of the PSM team, and may help provide a more balanced perspective. 

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. 

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. 

Support for sites is multi-tiered and includes participation by numerous federal, state, private, academic, and tribal organizations. Network operation includes rigorous field and laboratory quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC), including an external quality assurance program and periodic external on-site audits. 

Line management participates in regularly scheduled audits to ensure the procedures and practices for managing chemical reactivity hazards are being consistently followed. 

Improvements in the methods in which process sampling is established. (Who participates in the decision What are the criteria for determining location method and devices Who authorizes Is there a periodic audit or reevaluation )... 

The GLP standards can be successfully implemented in a non-GLP anal5dical laboratory. The key to success is for management and staff to fully understand the ramifications of the decision and to set in motion a plan to achieve compliance. The plan should include a time line, assignment of responsibilities, and self-audits. The outcome wiU be an improvement in the overall quahty of the anal5dical work produced by the lab and the abUity to participate in a specialized analytical market niche. 

Personnel bioburden will be analyzed per SOP (provide number). In addition, QC/microbiology will perform audit monitoring of all media hll participants, including themselves. 

The team s expertise should be compatible with the kind of audit to be conducted. Audits of certain programs may require the selection of specialists in electrical equipment, pressure vessels, maintenance, motor fleet activities, and other fields. Line managers of other units are excellent members of audit teams. They bring a different background to spot weaknesses. In addition, participation is a learning experience for the manager and increases the involvement of those responsible for results. It may also be helpful to have a previous auditor of the unit as one member of the audit team. 

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