Accident Reduction
Advancements in Mobile Safety Auditing Technology
BY RORY K. ROGAN

As the foundation of a successful business, “employee safety is job one.” An organization that continually incurs a high accident rate simply cannot sustain without implementing viable, safe business operations. Accident reduction cannot occur unless the organization can pinpoint where the problem areas reside.

To achieve a safe workplace environment, an organization needs access to “real-time data.” The ability to gather, share and interpret standardized information is critical to the success of any organization. The search for this elusive compilation of data points is known as an “audit.”

Surviving in the business world takes intelligence, planning, attention to detail, and, according to many industry leaders, the latest auditing technology. Audits play an ever-increasing critical role in ensuring
workplaces, processes, and procedures operate safely. Yet, these essential audits have consistently been problematic in terms of time, accuracy and efficiency.

Management Commitment to Safety
– Every manager in an organization has responsibility for systematically identifying risks, hazards or unsafe situations or practices and for taking steps to ensure adequate safety in the activities under their supervision.

Implementation of an effective occupational safety and health program relies on management’s ability to recognize and adopt sound safety management principles. Without the ability to assess the level of compliance with safety, even well intentioned managers cannot ascertain where emphasis needs to be placed in order to elevate safety to the needed level.

The Way We Were – Just five years ago, auditing a large facility or an organization with multiple locations by different auditors was a cumbersome, time-consuming process. Maintaining current checklists and literally keeping everyone on the same page was arduous and problematic.

Interpreting the resulting data from a central location took time and implementing a corrective action plan was done not in “real time,” but in days or weeks after the actual audits were performed.

For IDLH (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health) conditions this meant a considerable time lag before corrective actions were initiated. In many cases, although the auditor noted the discrepancy,
the seriousness of the problem often went unnoticed until an Industrial Hygienist or other Safety Professional reviewed the data and initiated a “stopwork” order to ensure no one was injured.

Leading-Edge Tools for Safety Auditing – New technology for data management and reporting allows businesses to proactively manage audit results, substantially increasing efficiency and accuracy.
The ability to conduct a standardized corporate safety audit using handheld computers is now a reality thanks to innovative technology firms like Steton, based in St. George, UT.

Advantages begin by collecting data more efficiently and accurately using mobile auditing software on convenient handheld computers. The results come in the form of elevated safety management
through automatic generation of real-time reports, instant notification of noncompliant issues, and a closed-loop system of corrective action.

Mobile Safety Auditing – Auditors can now collect standardized safety data through the use of a handheld PDA, tablet PC, laptop computer or traditional desktop containing all audit related questions.
Additionally, auditors can include pictures taken during the audit, insert freeform notes in addition to prompted answer formats. Stored directly on the computing device, auditors can retrieve company policies, procedures and even OSHA regulations.

Immediate and Universal Data Access – It only makes sense to choose software that can be easily integrated into current processes and procedures, making it unnecessary to revamp existing auditing systems.

Data is quickly and easily synchronized into a web-based, secure, online database at the click of a button. Basic audit questions are already available and the user has the option of taking the existing audit questions or creating site-specific questions.

Curtailing questions to site-specific needs provides further detail for the auditor and the person responsible for performing a final review of the data.

Real-time Data Management – From the online database, users can access, update, and manage all audit information immediately after it is collected and uploaded. The data can be viewed from multiple locations by multiple users at the same time. And if you happen to be out of the office at the time your data is ready for review, it can be emailed to you. Administrators can view audit results from a
remote location anywhere in the world.

Immediate Corrective Action Assignment – Performing a safety audit without assigning key personnel to oversee corrective action rarely results in a long-term solution to the discrepancy.

Controlling and resolving hazardous workplace conditions to resolution are the central issue that is often overlooked. Understanding that follow-up is the key, managers can now immediately assign corrective actions to specific individuals who have the needed expertise to track and permanently
resolve the problem. Online corrective action turns loss analysis into loss prevention.

The safety auditing tools automatically create “to do” items and follow-up schedules.

The Best Management Practice – The ability to select the best management practice for your safety program is critical to the success of the program. Today’s technology advancements permeate every aspect of the business world. Successful businesses are quickly recognizing the power technology provides for gathering safety-related information quickly, organizing and reporting on data findings instantly, and validating their processes and procedures to ensure accuracy, efficiency and success.

Many companies are leaving “paperbased” and “semi-automated” auditing systems behind to fully utilize more comprehensive and analytical features gained from the latest technology developments.

Companies that had previously used paper audits to assess workplace conditions and physical safety in the past are embracing the benefits of a technology-driven marketplace.

Executive Summaries – The flexibility of this technology allows the user to not only examine data from a company-wide perspective, but also view it by division and even subdivision. Recent technology
has allowed the user to create an audit summary report that is sent electronically to executive team members as soon as their division’s latest audits have been updated to the system.

Increased Efficiency Without Increased Cost – A company can significantly increase it’s efficiency, thus increasing the annual number of safety compliance audits completed. The more audits that are completed, the more attention can be given to “unsatisfactory” issues because the system automatically tracks discrepancies to completion.

The result over time is an increase in “satisfactory” or “passing” scores, which results in decreased risks for the company. Automatically generated customized reports provide the user with immediate knowledge, key insights, and decision-making power that is simply not possible with a manual system.

Manual Safety
Auditing Systems Are History – Web based reporting tools provide the mechanism needed to quickly and easily identify safety deficiencies and implement corrective action plans. This “closed-loop approach” to safety auditing allows a company to collect more critical safety data in real time, with far
greater accuracy, dramatically enhancing its ability to quickly detect potential problems and make essential program adjustments.

Safety audits performed by trained auditors in large companies used to take weeks to complete.
Although instantaneous reports are one of the main benefits the company enjoys, troublesome data errors will also disappear.

Data entry is a simple “Compliant,” “Non-Compliant,” or “Not Applicable” choice, with the ability to add auditor notes for review by select personnel within the company for “gray areas.”

Data errors are virtually eliminated with the new technology.

Extensive Audit Content – Companies like Steton already have extensive libraries of audit topics pre-developed. With nearly the entire OSHA spectrum of safety regulations available for auditing, getting a feel for the level of compliance is a simple matter of letting an auditor loose with a PDA at a facility and
allowing them to answer questions posed on the PDA. Since all audits are fully editable, making site-specific audit questions is a simple matter of tailoring existing questions or adding additional ones.

OSHA regulations are standardized; very little editing needs to be done. This technology enables safety auditors to reach the highest performance level. Key to making the transition effective is the
selection of software that can be customized to the users unique auditing processes and reporting needs.

Bottom-line Benefits – Steton has developed an innovative, safety auditing system that can be used by any company in the world concerned with employee safety and improving incident rates. The top 10
benefits include:
1. Reduced injury and illness rates;
2. Reduced safety program costs;
3. Significant time reduction per audit;
4. Reduced time and effort to administer audits and report generation;
5. Elimination of data entry personnel completely;
6. Automatic report writing and tracking;
7. Elimination of paper reporting;
8. Accurate assimilation of preexisting auditing data;
9. Further empowerment of executive decision-makers; and
10. Real-time knowledge and process control.

Steton’s software provides a full circle of benefits to today’s businesses including improved data accuracy and time savings, customizable data collection, real-time reporting, reliable validation,
and corrective-action tracking. Information concerning Steton can be found by calling (888) 343-5655, or visiting their Web site at www.steton.com. FSM Rory Rogan is CEO of Compliware Safety Products, North Ogden, UT. He can be reached at (801) 737-0118 or compliware@aol.com.