Inspection Checklist: Why Is It Important and What Should Be Included?

An inspection checklist is a crucial instrument verifying the safety and quality of business operations. Check out this guide to learn more.

What Is An Inspection Checklist?

An inspection checklist sometimes called an inspection sheet, is a tool that inspectors and professionals in many fields find very useful. Inspection checklists are useful tools for determining if a process, operation, piece of machinery, or facility meets the standards established by the concerned industry or the government.By using an inspection checklist, you can make sure that the item you're looking at gets a thorough analysis that is also written down. After doing the inspection with the help of a checklist, you can use the inspected item for what it was made for. With the help of inspection checklists, a company can ensure that its operations are safe, of good quality, and/or do what they are supposed to do.

Checklists should be complete, but they should also be easy to use. Items should be listed in a way that makes sense and matches how each type of equipment will be inspected. They must be easy to use, or no one will use them. Checklists were only available on paper, but now they can be used digitally. Inspections can be done on mobile devices out in the field, and the data is saved and combined immediately, so it's easy to report. Checklists were only available on paper until now.

Benefits Of Inspection Checklist

1. Improvement In Safety

Inspections need to be run well so that the right checklists are used, and these checklists should be very thorough. Because of this, checklists should be easy to make, change, and keep for later use. It means that inspectors need to be able to make and use many different checklists. One should use a checklist for daily checks, the other for more in-depth evaluations, etc. When the checklists are already set up, inspectors can quickly load the checklist template they need onto their devices and do inspections without missing anything important that could lead to big mistakes. This is because there are already rules about the checklists.

2. Reusable

Inspectors don't have to make a new inspection checklist every time they inspect because they can use the checklist from the last inspection. Data from digital inspection checklists can be combined with other data and used to show patterns or just tell senior management about the bigger picture. This can happen by combining the data with other data and using tools that help you see the data.

3. Automatic Upload And Storage

Everyone involved in the inspection management process benefits from this increased flexibility, and the process moves faster. The inspectors can also add photos and PDF files to the data about the inspection. This way, everything will be kept digitally and neatly organized in a single folder. Inspectors who still use pen and paper to do inspections might benefit greatly from using a digital inspection management system with a good document management system. This would eliminate many of the problems that are happening right now. A proof of concept can be used early to test this feature, which helps solve problems.

4. Improves Communication

The information gathered during inspections is often looked at. The old way to sort through data is to dig through piles of paper and carry folders full of papers through many hallways and floors. On the other hand, if an inspection management system hosted in the cloud ensures that data collection is done digitally, it will be much easier to analyze inspection data or send it to inspection directors, analysts, or another government agency for review.

Role Of Inspection Checklist

The most important thing that inspection checklists do is list quality standards and product requirements and give objective criteria for checking items and facilities to ensure they meet customer expectations and government standards. Using inspection checklists helps ensure that equipment is in good working order, making accidents and maintenance delays less likely.

1. Improves Quality

If you do tests regularly, you can improve your processes and always offer high-quality products. If a company that makes or makes things wants to keep up its level of performance over time, it needs to improve its quality control.

2. Regulatory Standards

When doing quality control checks on products, a checklist is useful for the internal QC staff and for you and any third-party inspector you hire to do the checks for you. Using thorough quality assurance checklists can help ensure that your products follow all the rules. If a product is sold in a different market, the quality control checklist needs to have a section that describes that market and lists any laws or standards the product needs to follow.

3. Maintenance

If you can figure out how often a certain piece of machinery needs a certain repair, you can schedule that repair in advance. This will help you avoid delays and shorten the time the machinery is not working.

Importance Of Inspection Checklist

When doing inspections, checklists can be very helpful. When you only have one piece of equipment to check, it can be hard to remember everything you need to do. This is a worry for equipment managers and businesses that rely on their staff to do many tasks, inspections, and jobs. Checklists are used to ensure that PPE is being inspected correctly.

Checklists not only help you do many things but can also be used to prove that a risk management system is in place if you are sued for negligence. But relying too much on checklists can hurt performance in situations where time is of the essence, like a medical emergency at a work-at-height accident. Intensive training on using checklists reliably can help people use more adaptable and flexible ways to solve problems.

Ensure safety and compliance in your factory with our comprehensive Factory Maintenance Safety Checklist. Learn more about the essential steps to stay compliant and maintain a secure working environment in our latest blog: Factory Maintenance Safety Checklist: Stay Compliant.


What Should You Include In Your Inspection Checklist?

1. General Info

No matter what kind of inspection checklist you make, it is important to include all the basic information, like the name of the inspector, the date, and the company's name.

2. Machinery

Every workplace has its own set of machines and tools used daily. To ensure they work safely, you might want to ask the following questions: Are the workers properly trained on how to use machines and equipment safely? Do machines and other tools get checked out regularly? Are all machines and tools well taken care of? Are all buttons for emergency stops easy to find? Are the machine guards safe and easy to get to?

3. Work Information

Most inspection checklists have safety-related items to make sure that employees and the place of business are safe at work. It should have information about the work, such as the cleanliness, surfaces, waste removal, storage, etc.

Types Of Safety Inspections

1. Safety Inspection Checklist

A Safety Inspection Checklist has many safety categories that can be used in various businesses and situations. The safety checklist is best used to find and fix hazards unique to each facility's process, piece of equipment, and safety system.

2. Workplace Inspection Checklist

A workplace inspection checklist is used to look at workers' risks in an office setting and draw attention to them. These may include finding out about possible injuries caused by physical exertion and mental stress, ergonomic risks when sitting or standing, health and safety procedures for viral infections or other diseases, general office lighting, ventilation, security, and more.

3. Risk Inspection Checklist

A risk inspection checklist is one of the most important ways to show the risks that come with a hazard. This checklist helps you look at the risks that come with different industries, figure out how bad they are with the help of a risk index, and choose the best way to control the hazard.

4. OSHA Safety Inspection Checklist

With the OSHA safety inspection checklist, your company can see how well its safety program meets OSHA standards. The form and checklist cover all general industry safety categories, so you can find and fix strict standards at work.

5. Machinery Safety Inspection Checklist

The Machinery Safety Inspection Checklist is used to evaluate and figure out how safe machinery and equipment are in your industry as a whole. The checklist helps you find mechanical hazards, electrical hazards, and maintenance hazards in machinery. This way, you can avoid getting hurt or hurting someone because the machine guards are not good enough, the pre-operation checks aren't safe enough, LOTO isn't done right, or something else.

6. Site Safety Inspection Checklist

A walkthrough evaluation of a site is the best time to use a site safety inspection checklist. It considers all of the risks that normal work practices, the condition of the equipment, and the overall controls at a site can cause.

7. Daily Safety Inspection Checklist

With a daily safety inspection checklist, we can look at the most important health and safety issues that could come up every day at work. This checklist helps you keep a close eye on the people, processes, and machines at work every day, as well as the conditions, problems, and safety rules.

8. Construction Safety Inspection Checklist

A Construction Site Safety Inspection Checklist is set up to keep track of common construction industry risks. These include possible or actual problems with fall protection, personal protective equipment, scaffolding, high places, signs, evacuation plans, and more.

Why To Use An Inspection App?

As digitalization continues to change the way businesses work, many companies are starting to use inspection apps to make things easier. This is for employees who do field inspections every day and usually have to fill out a lot of paper forms and checklists to keep track of all the information and make reports after the inspection. Inspection apps are a revolutionary way to update and digitize manual inspection processes that used to be done on paper. These apps, which include solutions for infrared, vehicle, and machinery inspection, eliminate the hassle and time it takes to put information together on paper.

Inspection apps save time and give real-time visibility into rules and compliance, increase team productivity, improve collaboration within and between departments, and help reach zero-waste sustainability goals. What if you could have your database automatically updated with your different inspection checklists? With an inspection app, this is possible!

Features Of Inspection Apps

1. Integrated 

During many inspections, you have to take pictures of the things you look at. Since phones have powerful cameras built in, using the app to do an inspection can make it easier to take photos and add them to the report. Images can be linked to specific inspection items and are taken in real-time. You can also add notes to images and draw attention to any trouble spots.

2. Cloud-based Technology

Inspection apps that use cloud-based technology are helpful for businesses today. When your data is safely stored in the cloud, you can be sure that it will always be backed up and is easy to get to from anywhere. Inspection software platforms should have a high level of IT security built-in and meet requirements like GDPR and HIPPA. Modern technology has come a long way to ensure your business can run well online using tools available to businesses of all sizes.

3. Offline

Many business types need to be able to do work when they are not online. There are many places where inspections need to be done where there is no internet connection (such as a rural area or a basement). Inspection apps can collect and store data even when you are not connected to the internet. Once you can connect to the internet again, the app will sync everything back to the cloud.

4. GPS

The GPS feature is another built-in feature of a mobile phone. This lets you make sure that the property, equipment, vehicle, or other item being inspected is in the right place. Location tracking can be helpful for businesses that really need to know exactly where something is so they can do their jobs better. Companies that want to automate their processes could also use location data in the field to make other tasks easier, like automatically creating work orders or other follow-up tasks.

5. Real-time Reporting

One big reason to use apps instead of paper is that you can report on data in almost real-time. Making a paper report often takes more time and takes longer for people who need the information to get it.

When you use an app to make an inspection, it automatically files the report and sends it to everyone who needs it, so you don't have to do any extra work. This saves inspectors time and effort because they can finish their work and click the "submit" button to make a report. Most inspection apps start with templates, and you can change the templates to fit your company's brand and specific needs.

6. Automation

With automation tools built into inspection apps, your teams can work smarter and do less manual work. Using these tools, any follow-up actions needed after an inspection can be made automatically. Depending on your business, you may use this in different ways. Most of the time, it means putting all of your cloud tools and systems together so they can talk to each other.

You can also think of automation as push notifications or email notifications sent to different people after an inspection. In today's digitally connected world, you should always look for apps that can help you automate tasks and streamline your workflows to save time.

Benefits Of Using An Inspection App

1. Fast

The automation of inspections that is driven by data has a lot of good things about it. One of these benefits is that operations can go faster. Using digital infrastructure to plan, schedule, run, and report on inspections makes everything go faster. Real-time electronic communication between different cases and those involved moves things along in seconds. Because regulatory case management is so complicated, these interactions could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks if they didn't use inspection software. But with the right inspection software, you can cut down the time to a few mouse clicks.

2. Less Manual Work

The daily inspection management process is challenging in a variety of different ways. They make it more difficult for regulators to conduct their jobs effectively the vast majority of the time. By providing the digital infrastructure that is required for the inspection process, good digital transformation solutions can improve the entire inspection process from beginning to end. Because of these technologies, service is provided in the most effective manner possible, which enables regulators to save money and improves the efficiency with which they perform their jobs.

3. Transparency

The hosted-in-the-cloud digital inspection platform can make sure that inspection reports are always available in real time. So, people who need to know the results of the inspection will be able to get them faster. Talking about how government agencies do their jobs helps keep the public's trust because it makes things clearer. It also helps keep the public's trust in government agencies.

4. Improved Inspection

The rules are always open to change. When the rules are changed, it is likely that the process for managing inspections will need to be done again. With a reliable digital inspection platform, new compliance standards can be added to the work process in less than a minute. Automation can save hundreds of hours of work that would have to be done by hand, with all the risks that come with that. If inspection software is used at every step of the process, new laws can be put into place more quickly and with less error.

5. Remote Access

In challenging times, when individuals are spread out in different locations, digital inspection platforms play an important role in keeping this process moving forward. It indicates that there should be a shift in the way rules are enforced in potentially hazardous environments such as social care institutions so that the social distance standards are respected. Portals that allow for self-service and self-inspection can assist regulators in performing their duties and adhering to the guidelines of the new social distance.

Wrap Up

Everything moves more quickly when there is planning, scheduling, and reporting that too with the use of an inspection app. Things proceed quickly thanks to real-time technological communication among the parties concerned and various scenarios. Zorp helps create an inspection app without writing any code for inspectors. With Zorp's pre-built template and Form Builder, one can make checklists that can be accessed from phones or tablets.

Want to know how AI can improve reliability and efficiency in your maintenance process?

What you get:

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👉 Integrate with your existing tools

What happens next?

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