Inspect™ Audit Management

display-inspect Performing an audit of a process or installation might be considered to be a relatively straightforward task. However, when many different assets, processes and people are involved, the audit management can become complex.

Inspect™ is the ideal tool for managing an entire audit program. It simplifies the whole audit process from the creation of the audit inspection criteria, writing the report, peer review, publishing of the report, right through to the management of the findings. It allows a team of people to interact in a way that would be impossible conventionally.

The measurement coordinator, responsible for managing the whole audit process, kicks off the process by creating the audit inspection criteria that details the scope of the audit, with the audit criteria either entered manually, through standard templates or from previous audit criteria.

Once setup, the lead auditor is notified of the new audit by email and appoints an auditor to implement it. Inspect™ emails this auditor with all the details needed to gain access to the audit so they can download it to their laptop.

Working offline, the auditor enters findings, comments and recommendations against each audit item. These findings can be supplemented with file attachments, including pictures, video and scanned documents.

As soon as the auditor returns from their site visit, the initial audit findings are transferred back to the Inspect server so the auditor and other members of the audit team can review the findings and add comments as required.

The final audit report is passed back to the lead auditor, who completes the process by making last minute alterations and adding covering comments as appropriate. Once fully satisfied with the content, the audit report is issued to all the parties involved.

The station manager receives a list of the audit findings that they must address and close out. Any outstanding findings that were not closed before the next audit will automatically be escalated and carried forward into the next report.

Inspect™ creates a secure interactive environment where auditors, audit managers and operations personnel can share key audit information in real time regardless of location.

Inspect™ at a glance...

Audit programme management
Custom audit inspection criteria
Finding entries with recommendations, comments and attachments
Finding management through to closeout
Automatic PDF audit report generation
Centralised library of all audit reports

Inspect™ is part of the Metrology™ suite of integrated products

Metrology™ Suite

Extend your metering asset management capabilities with other applications in the Metrology™ suite to extend the view on the whole metering system, all of which interact with Record and use the same common equipment database.

Profile™ – Data Acquisition and Reporting
Calibrate™ – Calibration and Scheduling
Approve™ – Meter Proving & Flow Meter Calibration
Record™ – Process and Equipment Logbook
Inspect™ – Audit Management
Manage Equipment

Inspect™ has a built-in equipment database, called Inventory™, that tracks all equipment involved on the metering station. Equipment is represented in an intuitive navigation panel that reflects the hierarchy of the site. Information such as the manufacturer, model or type, serial number, date of installation, history of usage, last calibration date and location on the plant is all tracked for every piece of equipment regardless of whether it is in active service, in stores, off site for maintenance or repair or no longer used. This equipment data can be shared between other applications in the Metrology™ suite.
Record Events

Inspect™ automatically posts key audit events into the Record logbook including when the audit report is issued and when the findings are closed out to provide a fully traceable list of events. Inspect™ also provides direct access to the audit report directly from the logbook.
Navigation

Quickly and easily find audit reports. Simply zoom through graphical maps or a hierarchical menu to help locate the required audit report for any metering station anywhere in the world.
Multi-Lingual

Inspect™ dynamically translates the entire user interface to reflect the native language of the auditor, and includes support for non roman script languages such as Arabic, Russian and Chinese. Multiple languages can be used simultaneously.
User Access

Inspect™ allows access to the system to be restricted on a user-by-user basis, providing full control over what each user can or cannot do. Inspect™ is multi user straight out of the box with no restriction to the number of users that can connect to the server and with no expensive user licenses to buy
Online Web Browser Access

Access to Inspect™ is with a standard web browser, providing interested parties secure access to their audit reports online and also for the station manager to manage their own findings. It is not only end users that have web access to Inspect™, the authoring of the audit report is also entirely web based, allowing auditors to collaborate with each other in ways that were not previously possible. Managing an audit report online solves the problem of maintaining different revisions of reports on different computers, as there is only one controlled revision of the report available from a single server. Access to the web server is fully secure and is carefully monitored by Inspect™.
Offline Auditing

Once the inspection criteria has been added, the audit can be downloaded onto a laptop so the auditor can perform their initial audit report without needing to be connected to the Internet. When the auditor returns from site, they simply upload it back on to the server at the click of a button so they can continue to interact with the document online.
Statistical Analysis

Statistics from each audit report are automatically generated and can be used to compare the historical performance of a given metering station over time or to compare its performance against other stations on the same system. Inspect™ draws these charts either in terms of category of findings or their severity. Individual stations are automatically ranked in terms of their peers.
Finding Management

Once the audit report is published, the station manager has access to the all the findings raised by the report. The station manager must address each audit finding, adding progress reports as the issues are advanced before they are finally closed out. Of course, any outstanding findings that are not closed at the time of the next audit are automatically escalated and carried forward to the next audit.
Audit Report Library

Over time, Inspect builds up a comprehensive library of all audit reports written for each station on the system. These reports are neatly filed in date order and all produced in a consistent format regardless of the author’s style. These audit reports are all fully searchable and are made available online as PDF documents that can easily be opened in a web browser by any interested parties.
Revision Control

Inspect automatically takes a snapshot of the audit report at major milestones during the lifecycle of report, incrementing the document’s revision number as it does so. Automatic revisions are made after the initial closeout meeting, after the first draft, after review and when the report is published. Of course, the auditor can make a revision at any other time too. Any previous revision of the report can be selected and printed off for reference providing full traceability.
Manage the Workflow

Writing an audit report requires input from several different people, all contributing at different times. Inspect manages the overall workflow to ensure that the whole process is as efficient as possible, introducing users into the loop when they are required, sending them email and providing them with direct links to the exact section of the report that requires their attention.
Attach Other Documents

Pictures that are attached to the report are automatically resized and optimized and embedded within the report. Other documents such Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel or PDF documents etc can also be attached to the audit report and are accessible by the user from a link in the audit report.
Findings

While performing the audit, the auditor simply enters their findings against the audit’s inspection criteria, automatically managing the contents of the document in the background. It also allows multiple findings or comments to be made against a single item.

One problem often faced by station managers is that their audits sometimes repeat a single issue just because it is common across several streams. This adversely skews the overall number of findings. With Inspect™, a single finding can be attributed to multiple streams or pieces of equipment, providing a more accurate indication of the overall number of findings uncovered.
Formatted Audit Reports

Inspect™ automatically formats findings into a professionally typeset audit report that can be downloaded in PDF format, either as a summary document that only includes the findings or as a full document that shows all audited points. This audit report document includes a cover page, table of contents, introduction, finding summary, description of the finding categorization and a list of meeting attendees. The document concludes with a list of all the findings including their categories, risk factors and the auditor’s recommendations. These findings are automatically assembled into sections and numbered accordingly.