Chapter 13: Safety and Health Inspection

After knowing all the hazards and possible negative consequences of these hazards, you will now learn
how to perform safety and health inspection and determine how to eliminate the conditions that may
cause harm to your workers and the workplace. As we have often heard, an ounce of prevention is better
than a pound of cure.

Safety and health inspection is a potent tool in identifying workplace hazards even before they cause
accidents or illnesses. You are in the best position to use this tool. The Inspection Cycle together with the
Checklist represents a clear and structured roadmap for you to follow and enrich your workplace
improvement efforts.

This module aims to discuss the value and key elements of safety inspection as a reliable approach to
identifying and eliminating conditions that contribute to illness, accident or environmental damage in the
workplace.

Some OSH officers may ask: What is the difference between safety inspection and safety audit? Safety
audit is a comprehensive evaluation of the general working conditions of the organization while safety
inspection is the identification of hazards in a certain area or equipment within the organization in order
to improve its working condition.

Objectives

Working on this module should help you to

• define safety inspection items and conditions

• determine areas needing safety inspection

• articulate the importance of inspection to the OSH programs as a whole

• identify personnel who are best capable to conduct safety inspection

• enumerate the roles of personnel in the conduct of safety inspection

• practice using relevant inspection tools

Views on safety and health inspection

Let us start with a quick assessment of your views on the subject matter by providing your responses to
the items in this activity. This activity is meant to have the same frame of mind for you and your peers on
the value of safety and health inspection as a tool to effectively assess status of workplace OSH programs
and prioritize corrective or improvement actions.

The positive views that can be gathered in this exercise can help you appreciate inspection better, giving
you the confidence to use the tool as among your hazard identification and corrective action
determination instruments. The negative views will spell the pitfalls that safety inspectors need to avoid
in the performance of their functions.
 What is safety and health inspection?

Safety inspection is a tool in the prevention of accident to locate and report existing and potential unsafe
conditions that, if left uncontrolled, have the capacity to cause accident in the workplace. Safety and
Health Inspection is a central part of most safety, health and environmental protection programs and that
it provides a reliable way for identifying and eliminating conditions that could contribute to accidents,
illnesses or environmental damages.

What are the requirements of Effective Safety and Health Inspection Programs?

• Sound knowledge of the facility

• Knowledge of relevant standards, regulations and codes

• Systematic inspection steps

• Method of reporting, evaluating and using the data

Sound knowledge of the facility

It is the familiarity with the facilities of the establishment is an effective tool in determining what are the
things to be inspected and how often these things be inspected.

Knowledge of relevant standards, regulations and codes

The reference of all safety and health rules and regulations of the company should always be the
established local legislations and codes. These standard regulations will be our guide in assessing whether
our workplace is safe or not.

Systematic Inspection system

In occupational safety and health time is very important. An established inspection system will facilitate
inspection activities and will allow the designated safety inspector to improve the workplace based on
identified hazards as early as possible.

Method of reporting, evaluating and using the data

Evaluation of effectiveness of the program is a must to determine whether a program is a success or a

failure. Inspection should be documented. Reports prepared and submitted and other safety and health
data are vital in evaluating the program.

An effective program begins with analysis, planning and with consider the following:

• What is the purpose of inspection?

• Who will conduct the inspection

• How often must items be inspected?

• What aspects of each item need to be examined?

• What conditions need to be inspected?

What are the components of the Safety and Health Inspection Cycle?

The primary purpose of inspection is to detect potential hazards so that these can be corrected before an
accident occurs. Inspection should be conducted in an organization to locate and report existing and
potential unsafe conditions or activities. It is important that every potential hazard found in workplaces
must be corrected to ensure no one will be injured, no one will be exposed to any diseases and workers’
working environment will not be contaminated by hazardous chemicals emitted from the process.

Who will conduct the safety and health inspection?

Safety Professionals

Clearly, the safety professionals (like the participants in this course) should spearhead the inspection
activity. During both individual and group inspections, the professional can educate others in inspection
techniques and hazard identification by using on-the-spot examples and firsthand contact.

Company or Facility Management

Management demonstrates its commitment to maintain a safe working environment. But the
psychological effect of inspection by senior executives goes beyond merely showing an interest in safety.
When employees know that the management is coming to inspect their area, conditions that seemed
“good enough” suddenly appear unsatisfactory and are quickly corrected.

First-line Supervisors or Foremen

Supervisors and foremen spend practically all their time in the shop or facility, they are continually
monitoring the workplace. At least once a day, supervisors need to check their areas to see that:

• employees are complying with safety regulations,

• guards and warning signs are in place,

• tools and machinery are in a safe condition,

• aisles and passageways are clear and proper clearances maintained, and

• materials in process are properly stacked or stored

Employees

Employee participation in continuous inspection is one goal of an effective hazard control program.
Before beginning the workday, the employee should inspect the workplace and any tools, equipment and
machinery that will be used. Any defects the employee is not authorized to correct should be reported
immediately to the supervisor.

Maintenance Personnel

Maintenance employees can be of great help in locating and correcting hazards. As they work, they can
conduct informal inspections and report hazards to the supervisor, who in turn should encourage the
mechanics to offer suggestions.

Joint Safety and Health Committees

Joint safety and health committees conduct inspections as part of their function. They give equal
consideration to accident, fire, and health exposures. By periodically visiting areas, members may notice
changed conditions more readily than someone who is there every day. Another advantage provided by
the committee is the members’ various backgrounds, experience and knowledge are represented.

What are the qualifications of a good inspector?

• Knowledge of the organization’s accident experience

• Familiarity with accident potentials and with the standards that apply to his/her area

• Ability to make intelligent decisions for corrective action

• Diplomacy in handling personnel and situations

• Knowledge of the organization’s operations – its workflow, systems and products

Particular attention should be paid to the parts of an item most likely to become a serious hazard to health
and safety. These parts often develop problems because of stress, wear, impact, vibration, heat,
corrosion, chemical reaction and misuse. Items such as safety devices, guards, controls, work or wear
point components, electrical and mechanical components and fire hazards tend to become unsafe first.
For particular machine, critical parts would include the point of operation, moving parts and accessories.

What are planned and unplanned inspections?

Periodic inspections – include those inspections at regular intervals. They can target the entire facility, a
specific area, a specific operation or a specific type of equipment. Management can plan this inspection
weekly, monthly, semi-annually, annually or at other suitable intervals. Items such as safety guard
mountings, scaffolds, elevator wire ropes (cables), two-hand controls, fire extinguishers and other items
relied on for safety require frequent inspection. The more serious the potential for injury or damage
might be, the more often the item should be inspected.

Intermittent inspections – are those made at irregular intervals. Sometimes the need for an inspection
is indicated by accident tabulations and analysis. If

a particular department or location shows an unusual number of accidents or if certain types of injuries
occur with greater frequency, the supervisor or manager should call for an inspection. When construction
or remodeling is going on within or around a facility, an unscheduled inspection may be needed to find
and correct unsafe conditions before an accident occurs. The same is true when a department installs
new equipment, institutes new processes or modifies old ones.

General inspection – is planned and covers places not inspected periodically. This includes those areas
no one ever visits and where people rarely get hurt, such as parking lots, sidewalks, fencing and similar
outlying regions. Many out-of-the-way hazards are located overhead, where they are difficult to spot.
Overhead inspections frequently disclose the need for repairs to skylights, windows, cranes, roofs and
other installations affecting the safety of both the employees and the physical facility. Overhead devices
can require adjustment, cleaning, oiling and repairing. They should look for loose tools, bolts, pipelines,
shafting and pieces of lumber, windows, electrical fixtures, and other objects that can fall from building
structures, cranes, roofs and similar overhead locations.
What are the factors that determine the frequency of your inspection?

What are your preparations in the conduct of inspection?

Before conducting an inspection, you or the inspector/ inspection team should review all accidents that
have occurred in the area. At this brief meeting, team members should discuss where they are going and
what they will be looking for. During the inspection, before going into noisy areas, the team will need to
discuss what they wish to accomplish in order to avoid arm waving, shouting and other unsatisfactory
methods of communication.

What are the inspector’s tools?

As safety inspector, you should also be aware of any special hazards you may encounter. For example,
because welding crews and other maintenance crews move from place to place, they may be encountered
anywhere in the facility. Inspectors should know what precautions are required where these crews are
working.
Inspection Tools

You should have the proper tools ready before the inspection to make the process more efficient and to
gather more precise data. Common tools include:

• clipboards

• inspection forms

• pens/pencils

• lock-out/tag-out supplies

• measuring tape/ruler

• flashlight

Depending on the inspection area or type, the following equipment may also be useful:

• cameras

• tape recorder

• electrical testing equipment

• sampling devices (air, noise, light, temperature)

• sample containers

• calipers, micrometers, feeler gauges

• special personal protective equipment

• stop watch

How do you implement and monitor corrective actions?

Management must realize that employees are keenly interested in the attention paid to correcting faulty
conditions and hazardous procedures. Recommendations approved and supported by management
should become part of the organization’s philosophy and program. At regular intervals, supervisors
should report progress in complying with the recommendations to the safety department, the company
safety and health committee, or the person designated by management to receive such information.
Inspectors should periodically check to see what progress toward corrective actions is being made. Unsafe
conditions left uncorrected indicate a breakdown in management communications and program
application.

Sometimes management will have to decide among several courses of action. Often these decisions will
be based on cost effectiveness. For example, it may be cost-effective as well as practical to substitute a
less toxic material that works as well to the highly toxic substance presently in use. On the other hand,
replacing a costly but hazardous machine may have to wait until funds can be allocated. In this case, the
immediate alternative taken or proposed must be communicated to all persons involved.

Conclusion

Safety and health inspection is everybody’s responsibility for it is an effective tool in identifying workplace
hazard and help to sustain the program instituted by the safety and health committee in a workplace.
Continuous application of such tool will not only eliminate accidents or illnesses, but will also encourage
active participation of worker to follow standard procedure as required by their job.