The majority of companies utilize some form of Environmental, Safety and Health (ES&H) inspections to monitor compliance. These inspection programs can also be utilized to demonstrate compliance with regulatory requirements (e.g., Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA]) and/or support company injury-reduction initiatives. Results of these inspections are commonly captured in some version of a form or report, including field(s) to identify current level of compliance (e.g., "Satisfactory," "Not Satisfactory," and "Not Applicable"). In some instances, these forms also include provisions to identify best management practices, continuous improvement techniques, and lessons learned.
The ES&H inspection process is historically relied upon by management personnel to determine the overall implementation status of ES&H within the organization. Inspection results can also be linked to company "Safety First" initiatives, bonus programs, or similar incentives. While these inspection processes can prove successful in meeting company initiatives, even the most optimum versions of these processes can present a series of challenges.
Examples of challenges include having the program perceived as a "Safety Cop" exercise, whereby safety violation tickets are continually issued without any significant programmatic improvement in actual performance; having personnel simply "check the box" to complete the inspection within the required timeframe; limiting the time available for ES&H professionals to assist with developing safety initiatives; and, perhaps most importantly, the inability to utilize ES&H inspection results to support development of leading performance indicators to enhance overall performance.
Having the capability to develop ES&H inspection processes that engage personnel throughout the organization, reduce complacency with inspection activities, and provide consistent information for leading indicators can prove to be one of the most significant achievements for any ES&H organization. Indeed, such a process can serve to further demonstrate the "value added" for overall ES&H efforts.
To provide the maximum value for development of leading performance indicators from ES&H inspections, a process needs to be developed whereby implementation of ES&H requirements can be quantified versus having to rely on traditional "Satisfactory/Not Satisfactory" notations. For maximum benefit, ES&H professionals should assist with development of groups (e.g., topics) to be inspected and the associated evaluation criteria. Selection of topical elements, and associated evaluation criteria, should be focused on those that can provide the greatest value to the overall organization. For the purposes of this paper, Table 1 illustrates 10 groupings, and Table 2 illustrates evaluation criteria developed to populate these groupings.
Table 1. Theoretical ES&H Inspection Groupings (available in full paper)
Table 2. Detailed Inspection Criteria for ES&H Inspection Groupings (available in full paper)
As noted in the background discussion of this paper, the ability to conduct ES&H inspections that provide definitive value, including the ability to provide data for leading performance indicators, can prove to enhance the overall ES&H inspection effort. While the inspection percent values contained in Table 3 are for illustrative purposes, the resulting information demonstrates a series of notable attributes.
