Continuously Improving Workplace Safety

Once a safety check has been completed, it’s important to analyze the results. Inspection and audit reports can show whether there’s a need for improved safe work practices or more employee training. They also may indicate specific areas or equipment that require further, more in-depth analysis. Ultimately, reports provide insight on which areas are unsafe and why. From there, you can determine steps to take and establish priorities for corrective action. This not only helps you get into compliance, but also relates to injury prevention as potential problems are spotted and resolved before they lead to an incident.

Safety audits and inspections are integral to continuously improving the workplace and ensuring that operations run smoothly. Often, they can be used as tools to implement Kaizen, a Lean manufacturing methodology that eliminates inefficiency and practices change for the better. If you’re looking for ways to jumpstart Kaizen in your workplace, conducting safety checks is a great place to start. Once completed, you can take the results and determine what should be changed in order to eliminate waste, boost operations, and keep workers safe.  

Safety Inspections + PDCA Cycle

A major component to practicing Kaizen is the PDCA cycle, a framework that helps improve standards (in this case, safety standards) and carry out positive changes to work processes. This cycle outlines several steps to take in order to achieve continuous improvement. The stages are:

• Plan: Examine the current state of operations and determine whether there are any problems. Develop potential solutions, and a way to carry out these solutions.
• Do: Execute the plans that have been made. All workers involved should understand what changes to make and how to make them.
• Check: Follow up to see how the process of implementing change went, and if it was successful. Determine whether certain goals (such as reducing the risk of injuries) were achieved. Compare the new process to how things were previously.
• Act: If the changes were successful, make them the new standard. If they weren’t, begin back at the “Plan” stage again.

Safety audits and inspections are an important tool to this PDCA cycle. Inspections fall in the “Plan” stage (since they help you assess the workplace for hazards and examine potential safety problems), and audits fall in the “Check” stage (since they are a follow-up to determine how effective changes are, and are used to ensure that the overall safety program is effective).

PDCA is a continuous cycle, and conducting safety audits or inspections is not a one-and-done event. To eliminate hazards and establish a successful health and safety program, you must strive for continuous improvement. Safety audits and inspections, as the foundation to this improvement, will be conducted over and over again. Although they have different areas of focus, together they strive to constantly improve safety in the workplace.