7.1 Introduction
The review on current safety audit methods (cf. Section 4.5), as well as the Case studies I-IX revealed that there is still room for improvements in the current audit methods. At least three things seem to need special attention: 1) the audit method should cover all the key functions of safety management, 2) the method should support high reliability of the audit results, and 3) the time and personnel resources needed in the use of the method should be reasonable. The first requirement is obvious if we are considering management safety audit types of methods which were described in Section 4.3. The second requirement arises from the fact that the results are not valid if the audit tool does not promote high intra-observer and inter-observer reliability. The third point is that the effort used for the audit process should be in proportion to the expected benefits. For an organization, it is essential that the safety audit clearly identifies the activities that require improvements. When an audit concentrates on the key activities of safety management, it can be considered that all activities are equally important. This leads to a model where the relative importance of all activities is the same, and the use of weights is not necessary. According to Cooper (1998), establishing the weighting factors for each of the various elements of an audit tool can be a painstaking and time-consuming work. Furthermore, he states that a simple “yes”, “no”, “don’t know” format will suffice in most instances. This keeps the method simple, but it allows the calculation of a score by adding up the number of “yes”, “no”, and “don’t know” responses.
The above described findings were the basis for the development of a new health and safety audit method called the MISHA (Method for Industrial Safety and Health Activity Assessment). The objective was to develop a comprehensive health and safety audit method which would have high reliability when used by trained auditors either from inside or outside the company. The contents of the MISHA method is not designed to be permanent. The activities to be assessed can be changed or modified on demand.
The development of MISHA was carried out in two phases. The first version was developed using an expert group which had previous experience in safety audit methods. At this stage, also comments and criticism was received from several other experts and colleagues of the author. The first version was then tested in one company. The results of this test indicated that the method requires further development. The second, modified version was then tested in another company. Testing of the MISHA method is described in Chapter 8.
7.2 Structure of the MISHA method
The MISHA method is primarily designed to be used in middle and large-size industrial companies. The most appropriate industrial sectors are manufacturing and process industry. In a large organization having several independent processes or locations, it is advisable that a separate audit is carried out in each area. The area should be determined in the preparation stage by the auditor or the audit team together with the company’s management.
The audit process should have a leader who can be either from inside or outside the organization. The internal auditor can be, for example, the company’s quality manager, safety manager, administrative manager, or a person in charge of the maintenance activities. The auditor should have prior experience in health and safety activities. In addition, the auditor should carefully examine the MISHA audit method before the on-site activities. Other practices that should be followed with the MISHA method, are those presented in Section 4.4.
The MISHA method has a multi-level structure (Figure 9). The four main activity areas (A-D) are analogous with the key functions of safety management as described by Booth & Lee (1995) (cf. Section 3.3). These four main areas are divided into sub-areas (A1, A2 ..., B1, B2 ..., etc.). The sub-areas include then the individual activities to be assessed.
Figure 9. The activity areas of the first version of the MISHA method.
Each individual activity includes: 1) the activity to be assessed, 2) the related issues to be considered in the assessment, and 3) the scoring system. An example of the structure is presented in Figure 10.
Figure 10. Example of an individual activity assessed in the MISHA method.
A1 Safety policy A2 Safety activities in practice A3 Personnel management B1 Safety training of the personnel B2 Work instructions B3 Incentives to safe work practices B4 Communication C1 Physical work environment C2 Psychological work environment C3 Analysis of the work environment D1 Occupational illnesses D2 Occupational accidents D3 Occupational diseases D4 Work ability of the personnel D5 Social work environment A. Organization and administration B. Training and motivation C. Work environment D. Follow-up Activity Scores
A1.2. Top management’s commitment to safety policy 0 1 2 3 Issues to consider:
− Has company’s top management (factory manager, managing director) commited itself to the goals of the policy ?
7.3 The scoring system
Audit conclusions should guide the company to improve those activities which need actions most urgently or which are currently at the lowest level. In the MISHA method, this was arranged by giving each activity a score which describes how well the activity meets the predetermined requirements. The scoring system is uniform, although not totally identical, with the one used in the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award (cf. Malcolm ... 1994). The requirements and the corresponding scores are presented in Table 17.
Table 17. The requirements and the corresponding scores in MISHA.
Requirements Score
All issues to be considered are put into effect without weaknesses or deficiencies. A strong improvement process is in use.
3 points Improvement process is put into practice. Activity standards and rules are
obeyed. There are no notable deficiencies in activities.
2 points Activity is at minimum level. Rules and the modes of action are
determined and notified. In some areas activities are only problem- solving in nature. However, activities are mainly sensible and applicable.
1 point
Activity is not at acceptable level. Rules and modes of actions are determined only verbally. No visible activities can be seen, or activities are only problem-solving in nature.
0 points
The safety activity rating can be calculated from the given scores. The rating can be computed either to a single activity area or to the entire assessment. As an example, the rating for activity area (A) is calculated as follows:
Sum of scores for activity area (A)
Activity rating (A) = x 100 % (3)
Maximum available scores for activity area (A)
The total activity rating is calculated as follows:
Scores (A) + Scores (B) + Scores (C) + Scores (D)
Activity rating (tot) = x 100 %
Sum of maximum available scores for activity areas (A-D)