Design audits Audit

Human Factors Engineering/Ergonomics approach (control of error by design, audit, and feedback of operational experience) Occupational/process safety Manual/control operations Routine operation Task analysis Job design Workplace design Interface design Physical environment evaluation Workload analysis Infrequent... 

Design qualification Auditing the design of a facility (or element of a facility, such as a cleanroom) to ensure that it is compliant with the specifications laid down and that it is, therefore, capable of meeting GMP requirements... 

DOE-2.1 - A computer software program that simuiates energy consumption of commerciai buiidings used for design and auditing purposes. 

Besides outcome measures, interviews represent a possible data-collection method. Whether directed or not (e.g., Sinclair 1990) they can produce critical incidents, human factors examples, or networks of communication (e.g., Drury 1990a), which have vrilue as part of an audit procedure. Interviews are routinely used as part of design audit procedures in large-scale operations such as nuclear power plants (Kirwan 1989) or naval systems (Mrilone et al. 1988). 

The concept of looking across specific laws and regulations to the underlying operations of the business is the preferable way to structure a compliance system. Because TSCA is not specific to any one environmental medium, a thorough and well-designed TSCA audit should look at all the environmental media. For example, the EPA can use TSCA to regulate the release to water of a specific chemical, or its presence as breathable particles in the workplace, or its method of disposal. In those circumstances an audit should investigate all of the pertinent media. 

Before designing the audit protocol, it is important to determine the purpose of the audit. For example, an audit of compliance with export notification requirements will have a different group of functions involved than an audit of how a laboratory manages compliance with the research and development exemption to the PMN requirements. 

Dependability concerns the quality of the inquiry process while confirmability addresses the quality of the inquiry product, i.e., the data, interpretations and recommendations. A common mechanism to address both of these trustworthiness criteria is to employ a qualitative data audit in the research design. An audit trail can simultaneously address both the dependability and the confirmability of a research study. A dependability audit reviews the methodological decisions made in the inquiry, while the confirmability audit examines the findings of the inquiry to confirm that the researcher s interpretations are grounded in both the theoretical framework and in the data collected. 

Design Requirements Audit. The standards references in this group include sections that ... 

Design configuration audits (as needed for components, subsystems, and the system) should be completed by the enterprise to assure the system elements conform to the technical documentation that defines the build-to baseline. 

Mobility audits are carried out to check that people with disabilities are not disadvantaged in any way by a scheme design. The audits consider the provision for visually and hearing-impaired pedestrians, wheelchair users and mobility-impaired people. The publication Inclusive Mobility is a useful point of reference for anyone carrying out these audits. The latest requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 could lead to these audits becoming more... 

In New Zealand, where local authorities are obliged to have their road and traffic designs audited, the cost of undertaking audits is an issue for smaller authorities. 

Designing an audit system to match an entity s operations and inherent risks... 

Comparing the design and auditing the implementation to accepted codes... 

Verification activities carried out according to the verification and validation plan. Typical verification activities include e.g. design reviews, audits of procedure implementation and integration testing ... 

ANSI Z9.5-2003, Laboratory Ventilation, is intended for use by employers, architects, occupational and environmental health and safety professionals, and others concerned with the control of exposure to airborne contaminants. The book includes new chapters on performance tests, air cleaning, preventative maintenance, and work practices. It also highlights the standard s requirements and offers good practices for laboratories to follow. The book also offers referenced standards and publications, guidance on selecting laboratory stack designs, an audit form for ANSI Z9.5, and a sample table of contents for a laboratory ventilation management plan. 

At the end of the audit both parties shall review the completed questionnaire to identify anomalies to be designated as audit findings (AFs), numbered AFl, AF2, and so on. The more significant AFs may, where appropriate, be classified as nonconformities to be entered into the nonconformity management system described in Chapter 8. 

In many ways, environmental audits are the easiest and most acceptable type of evaluation. In fact, regular environmental or housekeeping audits are already standard practice at most companies. These evaluations can often be improved by involving more employees in designing audit forms, conducting systematic and regular assessments, and posting the results in relevant work areas. 

The audit s objective affects both the form and the content of audit. It is our contention that audits are suited to determine point-in-time compliance. It is relatively easy to design an audit to determine point-in-time compliance with a regulation or a standard. It is much more difficult to design an audit process that will reliably help evaluate and improve a process. It is unlikely that a standardized audit could accomplish this. What is required is that the auditor has an understanding of the particular process under study. Based on this understanding, the auditor can then design questions to evaluate the process. We have some limited experience with this approach. It lacks the appeal of standardization and is relatively slow and costly. Moreover, it can succeed only in an atmosphere of trust. If the auditor is to ever find out what is really happening, the employees involved have to be confident that the information they reveal will be used to improve the system rather than to evaluate them. 

The implementation of Road Safety Audit in Argentina started with a design stage audit at the Highway Safety Experimental Section funded by the World Bank. 

The energy audit has seven components as-it-is balance, field survey, equipment tests, checking against optimum design, idea-generation meeting, evaluation, and foUow-up. 

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