Audit tools

Examples of an audit protocol and a topical outline are provided in Figures 4-3 and 4-4. Whichever audit tool is chosen, it should be used consistently for all audits. 

FIGURE 2.14 Sociotechnical Model Underlying Audit Tool (from Hurst et al., 1992). 

Another link exists between the PIF concept and the sociotechnical assessment methods described in Section 2.7 The checklists used in the TRIPOD methodology are essentially binary questions which evaluate whether the sets of PIFs making up each of the general failure types are adequate or not. The hierarchical sets of factors in HRAM are essentially PIFs which are expressed at increasingly finer levels of definition, as required by the analyst. The audit tool which forms MANAGER also comprises items which can be regarded as PIFs which assess both management level and direct PIFs such as procedures. 

Also, we shall see in section 3.3., Reason s proposal to use an auditing tool of a standard set of faulty management decisions clearly aims only at the Monitoring purpose of near miss reporting, perhaps also somewhat at the purpose of Alertness , but certainly does not contribute to Modelling , i.e, to understanding how the development from left to right in his model can occur. 

Our conclusion therefore is that the auditing tool described by Reason may certainly complement a NMMS as described in Chapter 4, and might also serve to cross-check the NMMS s results on Organisational factors (see Chapter 5), but will not be able to replace a NMMS aimed at all three purposes to be outlined in section 3.3. 

Fundamentally, this audit tool is designed to improve accountability and business planning processes, which, in turn, boost corporate adaptability and market responsiveness to enhance the economic, social, and environmental triple bottom line of participating corporate partners. As the field of CSR/SRI continues to develop and mature, we anticipate that tools like the CAP Gap Audit will be refined to assist industry leaders in benchmarking best-in-class standards for particular industries. 

K. Kimball, EHS Auditing Tools Past, Present, and Future the Industry Representative s Perspective, Presentation made to The Auditing Roundtable 2002 Winter Meeting, January 7-9, 2002, Phoenix, AZ. 

Practice management guideline S Initiate and maintain ongoing self-assessments of the safety of individual clinical practices as well as with the health care team, the pharmacy department, and the organization. Use the learning experiences of others and self to proactively implement known best practices locally to prevent medication errors and to develop your own safety audit tools. Be dissatisfied with the status quo and seek to develop an error management vision and then take the practical first steps to implement it. 

The principle conclusion is that the development of "expert" systems and the necessary audit tools for verification and validation of those systems is still in infancy. There are a number of interesting concepts under development which bear promise but which will probably see their first application within critical space and defense applications. Tools useful to those of us interested in more generalized risk and reliability analyses are probably at least two to three years away. 

The principal value of spreadsheets, other than their universal acceptance and use over the past decade, is the ability to display efficiently and use individual estimates of costs and benefits for each period over the life of the project, reflecting anticipated variability rather than a uniform average value or an approximate mathematical series. This will be discussed as each discounted cash flow method is presented. The principal disadvantage of a spreadsheet is that computational errors are hidden, even though an audit tool exists. However, the problem of quality assurance is not a new one, and the engineer must always be alert to the prevention and elimination of errors. 

Dose area product meters should be used routinely and the results recorded. This is an important audit tool to improve technique and radiation protection standards. 

The objective in making and using an effective audit tool for the purpose of measuring safety performance is to determine the correlation between the audit, its individual items, and the safety performance measure. 

The safety case is regarded as an increasingly important audit tool and of greater potential value than off-the-shelf safety audit schemes. Local managers are expected to undertake regular safety audits and are externally audited every three years. Railtrack s safety case is audited by its own auditors and also by the Railway Inspectorate, who assess Railtrack s procedures for auditing the train operating companies compliance with their safety cases (HSE, 1997 13 ff.). 

In the National Self-Insurer OHS Audit Tool User Guide Workbook (2009) (New South Wales, Australia), an audit is defined as ... 

Huang, Yueng-Hsiang, and Stanford A. Brubaker. Safety Auditing Applying Research Methodology to Validate a Safety Audit Tool. Des Plaines, IL Professional Safety, 2006. 

National Self-Insurer OHS Audit tool User Guider Workbook Prepared by Workcover NSW on behalf of the NAT Review Working Party. Available at http //www.workcover.nsw.gov.au/formspublications/publications/ Documents/national self insurer ohs audit tool guide workbook 2300. pdf. 

Through increasing their third party auditing with Sustainable Textiles Solutions (STS), they have developed a new joint chemical auditing tool and applied this to all strategic suppliers globally. They are now developing corrective action plans for follow up and improvement. 

Fault tree analysis is also very effective in determining the root cause of accidents and near miss incidents. It helps evaluate equipment failure and predict potential hazards. Fault tree analysis is a useful safety audit tool that uses very simple statements of fact and is very objective and realistic. 

Figure 4.6 illustrates the SMS audit tool format, and Tables 4.8 and 4.9 list the SMS elements reviewed of the rail safety regulator, Independent Transport Safety and... 

Once the audit tool was developed, it was important to select and train the audit team. The team was comprised of experienced SMS auditors from various industries including aviation, rail, process industry, and aerospace/military. This was purposely done so that there would be a diverse team that could look at the problem from multiple perspectives and bring best practices from their own industries. The SMS audit team collected data from various sources and then, as a team, evaluated the compendium of information and inputted the results into each of the 11 ITSRR and 29 RailCorp SMS elements for review. The sources of input for the audit were... 

Leksin, A., R. Mock U. Barth 2014. The Potential of QRA Audit Tools in Industrial Fire and Explosion Protection. In Proc. of European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL2013). In Safety. Reliability and Risk Analysis Beyond the Horizon. Amsterdam, the Netherlands 1895-1901. 

A full inclusion policy self-evaluation checklist is included on the CD, Chapter 3 Example 3. When this has been completed, it will give a guide as to where the strengths and weaknesses lie. It is at this point that additional audit tools can be used to ... 

Learning Support Unit Audit Tool (DfES)... 

CAUTION The following excerpts are fiom the OSHA Notice CPL 2, distributed on August 1, 1996, by the Directorate of Compliance Programs. This Program Evaluation Profile (PEP) notice was cancelled on November 15, 1996. This document is provided as an EXAMPLE of an auditing tool to assist in the evaluation of a Safety and Health Program. 

Eisner and Leger (1988) reviewed the application of the ISRS audit in South African mines. In fact, the ISRS was initially designed as an audit tool for South African mines. Their conclusion, as stated in the abstract of their study, is that ... 

Kuusisto, A. Safety management systems Audit tools and the reliability of auditing. Doctoral dissertation. Technical Research Center of Finland, 2000. 

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