Inspections and audits

Inspections and audits are sometimes used as synonyms in safety conversations. They’re not quite the same thing — but for tooling purposes, they have the same shape, which is why SteadyOn handles them in one module.

The difference

Inspections are operational. A supervisor walks a site with a checklist and ticks off items as compliant or not. The output is a score and a list of failures, each of which becomes a corrective action.
Audits are evaluative. An auditor — often external — examines whether the safety system is functioning. They look at records, interview workers, and assess whether the documented programme matches reality.

Inspections happen weekly or monthly; audits happen yearly. An inspection looks at the workplace; an audit looks at the records.

Why one module

In SteadyOn the two share:

A reusable template (a list of sections and items).
A run (one execution at a date, by a person).
A result (Pass / Fail / N-A per item, leading to a score).
A workflow (Scheduled → In progress → Complete).
An ability to raise actions from failures.

That structural overlap is total. Implementing audits separately would duplicate everything for a thin abstract distinction. So SteadyOn lets you build audit-flavoured templates (“Annual H&S system audit”, “Notifiable-event records audit”) alongside operational inspection templates, and uses the same machinery for both.

Templates and runs

The template is the reusable shape. The run is the execution.

Edit the template to refine the questions over time. New runs use the new shape; in-flight runs are unaffected.
Edit a run to fix a wrong response or finish later. The template isn’t touched.
Save a run as a template when you’ve ad-hoc-built something worth reusing.

Each item has a stable ID. Reordering doesn’t break runs already in flight; renaming doesn’t lose the response history.

Pass / Fail / N-A

Three states per item:

Pass — the item is satisfactory. No further work.
Fail — the item is not satisfactory. Add a note (often required by the template), and raise an action to fix it.
N-A — the item doesn’t apply. (E.g. “Eye-wash station is charged” on a site that doesn’t have eye-wash stations.) N-A items don’t count toward the score.

The score is Pass / (Pass + Fail) × 100. N-A items are excluded so they don’t dilute the rate.

How to use scores

A score is a comparable number across runs of the same template. Trending matters more than the absolute value:

A drifting downward score is the canary. It means standards are slipping faster than corrective actions are catching up.
A score that’s stuck at 100% is suspicious. Either your template is too easy or your inspector is too lenient. (Or you’re genuinely doing very well — but examine the template before celebrating.)
A score that swings wildly suggests inconsistent assessment between inspectors. Train them, or sharpen the items.

How often to run them

Default cadence in NZ small business:

Daily / weekly — pre-start checks, quick walkthroughs.
Monthly — full site walkthrough.
Quarterly — focused inspections (fire, electrical, hazardous-substances).
Annually — system audit covering policies, records, responsibilities.

Higher-risk industries (construction, manufacturing, healthcare) typically run more frequent, more focused inspections.