When you clean your house thoroughly from top to bottom, doesn’t a part of you kind of wish company would drop by unexpectedly?

Can you imagine actually looking forward to a surprise OSHA inspection?

It’s easier than you think, but just as maintaining a clean house takes sustained effort, you’ll have to make thorough safety management a part of your day-to-day regime. The following tips will help you prepare for and even embrace surprise inspections:

Know Thyself: It is critical to track all safety-related information and to maintain detailed documentation on your organization’s safety record. Also, note which industry category your business falls within and whether your sector is considered high-risk. The risk factor associated with your industry is directly related to the chance OSHA inspectors will come calling.

Know your Rights: While a mutually respectful relationship between safety staff and Compliance Safety and Health Officers (CSHO) should be maintained during any inspection, it is also important to know that you have rights. When a CSHO arrives, politely ask him or her for their credentials. Ask why they are visiting your worksite, and if it is a complaint-related matter, ask to see the complaint. Also, don’t hesitate to ask for time to get your team in order, and to prepare whoever will be assigned to accompany the inspector around your site. Don’t use this time to scramble to cover up any safety-related gaps. Use it to ensure a smooth, seamless inspection and to remind union reps that they are entitled to be present when an inspector requests to speak with any employee one-on-one.

Lose the ‘Us vs. Them’ Mentality: Your relationship with your inspector should not be adversarial. CSHOs are really just doing their job, and their goal is safety, not citations. Above and beyond maintaining a cooperative attitude during inspections, consider proactively getting to know your local OSHA office on an ongoing basis by dropping by and even calling for advice on safety issues.

Safety is a State of Being: Safety management should be a perpetual, cyclical state of ongoing compliance and continual improvement in safety performance. Checklists, dashboards, scorecards, and reports are critical tools that ease the burden of monitoring compliance with hundreds of safety requirements. Also, a software-based safety management system is capable of reaching out to the user through automatic email notifications to proactively ensure any safety gaps are addressed before they become a concern.

Some other tips:

• Kill the clutter: It sounds simple, but a safe worksite is a clean, clutter-free worksite. Take a regular walk around your premise. Are hallways and workspaces free and clear of obstacles and other hazards? 
• Document like it’s going out of style: As anyone who’s fought a court case knows, the value of documentation is enormous. From minor to major safety incidents to near-misses, documents absolutely every safety-related issue that arises.
• Safety compliance as a job requirement: Consider throwing a line into offer letters and job descriptions that denotes a commitment to safety compliance is a job requirement for every employee. Alternatively, have existing employees sign waivers expressing the fact.

If you'd like more information, this article (though a decade old) is a great guide to inspections and most of its information is up to date. Also, don't forget to review the OSHA FAQ to get acquainted with your rights, employee rights, and other interesting safety-related facts.

Workplace accidents and fatalities are a common occurrence, but many safety incidents could have been avoided through improved training management, accurate data reporting, internal audits, and generating a culture of safety within an organization.

The American Society of Safety Engineers has published a great, unbiased article titled "Technically Safe: Gaining 360◦ Visibility with Technology" by Peter Thiveos. The article addresses the key components of a successful safety management program, business rules and practical solutions, the value of designating a safety champion, and the benefits of using technology to improve an organization's safety performance.

Mr. Thiveos speaks to the need for a comprehensive system that addresses multiple facets including; training and certification management, incident and observation management, records and document management, risk assessment, monitoring and audit management, and corrective action management. "While all these systems have inherent benefits independently, collectively they provide unparalleled functionality and improvements in managing, compiling and reporting on an organization's overall safety status and SH&E governance," Peter Thiveos.

Intelex clients' Metso Minerals and Ferro Corporation are excellent examples of corporations that have actively generated a culture of safety consciousness across their organizations. One of the contributing factors to Metso Minerals' success was their safety champion Chris Adkins. Mr. Adkins spear headed the implementation of the Intelex Safety Management System and communicated Metso Minerals' safety program across the company. "With the Safety Management System now operational Metso Supervisors and managers can manage safety documents, report employee incidents and draw upon continuously updated best practice guidelines from Metso operations worldwide ... Part of my role is to create standard practices that are equal in every region. With verifiable results I can help protect and maximize the potential of Metso’s greatest resource, our employees." Chris Adkins – Global Health & Safety Specialist.

Ferro Corporation's Systems and Development Manager Art Plow is also their safety champion. In a recent case study, Art described Intelex as "an integral part of Ferro's world-wide Safe From Within Program and as a critical piece of our [Ferro's] larger effort to send all of our 6,500 employees home safely to their families at the end of the day, in some 17 time zones around the world." By using Intelex Safety Management Software to track all safety-related data and documentation in real-time, Ferro has been able to accurately measure their success in terms of improving their safety performance organization-wide.

Although safety management systems require an initial investment, the return-on-invest is quickly recovered through improved operating efficiency and a reduction in environment, health, and safety incidents. This sentiment is echoed by Peter Thiveos in the aforementioned article, "In light of today's nation and global economic condition, organizations need to understand that technology innovation and automation is one of the best ways to identify additional cost savings in their operations. Companies should always spend on effective technology-and, in the author's opinion, they should spend more in a downturned economy."

Learn more about how the Intelex's Safety Management Software can help your organization improve its safety performance.

Intelex Technologies has released its latest software innovation, the Intelex OpenPass API, a revolutionary application programming interface that will enable its users to sync and report data between multiple business management systems.

The Intelex OpenPass API functions as a conduit for seamlessly feeding data between multiple software programs. This means that Intelex’s environment, quality, and health & safety, and business management Software can now share data with pre-existing business software applications; thereby, saving time and resources while maintaining a degree of accuracy that’s difficult to achieve when data is transmitted manually.

The City of Calgary and St. Gobain are the first Intelex clients to take advantage of the OpenPass API.  The City of Calgary used our OpenPass API to import employee and location data from their pre-existing HR system into their Intelex System. They also used the OpenPass API to export employee injury data (i.e., incident number with date and time stamp) from Intelex’s Master Incidents Module into their HR program.

St. Gobain used the OpenPass API to import training courses, employee lists, and employee workgroup data from Lotus Notes into the Intelex System and Training Management Module. By using the OpenPass API St. Gobain was able to quickly populate their new Intelex System with historical data that will be a key factor in reporting accuracy and trending.

If you think that your organization could use the Intelex OpenPass API to import, export, and sync data between a pre-existing management program and your Intelex System, send an email to client.relations@intelex.com or call 416.599.6009 for more details.

(Above: EUEC Energy & Environment Conference 2009 in Phoenix, Arizona)

(Above: Intelex's Steve Ross & Dan Marcus with Intelex Users and colleagues)

The EUEC Energy & Environment Conference was a great source for industry news and best practices, but this year's conference was particularly relevant in light of President Obama's proposed renewable energy initiatives, which include "Implementing an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050," and "Helping create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future." (White House Agenda - Energy & Environment).

Information on managing Greenhouse Gas Emissions and other environmental initiatives.

Congratulations to Energizer on becoming 21 CFR Par 11 compliant!

In the digital age, electronic records and signatures have made paper documents and hand-written signatures an increasingly rare occurrence. To address this shift in standard business procedures, the US Code of Regulations instituted Title 21 CFR Part 11, which legitimizes electronic records and signatures by clearly defining the criteria under which an electronic record or signature can be accepted as valid. 

Industries most commonly affected by Title 21 CFR Part 11 typically fall under the regulatory standards established by the USA Food and Drug Administration. To help our clients achieve Title 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, Intelex has added dual-signature functionality to our system. This means that like Energizer, other Intelex Users can assign dual-signature authorization requirements to their critical business records.

It's not uncommon to hear about organizations working feverishly to develop effective quality and environmental management programs so that ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 certifications can be attained. While securing these certifications is a great accomplishment, implementing a web-based software application after the fact is a trend Intelex's Account Managers are not unfamiliar with.After discussions with organizations such as these, it’s often the case that the ISO implementation team was unaware that web-based quality and environmental management systems can actually help work toward this certification, as opposed to simply maintaining a compliant status.

Intelex's web-based Quality and Environmental Management Systems are designed to help organizations implement ISO standards and maintain ongoing compliance. Both Intelex's Quality and Environmental Management Systems function as frameworks enabling organizations to define an ISO registration schedule, identify project objectives, record policies, assign and track ISO tasks, manage all ISO-related documents, and provide real-time implementation progress reports. And because the Intelex System operates on a web-based platform, your organization's "ISO Portal" can be securely accessed by any approved employee with access to the internet.

The main takeaway here, is that organizations that purchase web-based quality or environmental management systems like the Intelex System, consistently report faster ISO registration turnaround times and more effective use of intellectual resources. When combined, these factors typically translate into significant cost savings.

If your organization has identified becoming ISO 9001:2008 or ISO 14001 registered as a business objective in 2009, save yourself time and money by speaking with an Intelex Account Manager first. Our account managers will be able to provide valuable insights, implementation best practices, and a no-obligation quote.

Six new reports for clients using the Intelex Standard Nonconformances Module have been posted on the Intelex-Exchange (to be downloaded for free).

These reports have been designed to provide an instant, real-time snapshot of your organizations standard nonconformance and corrective/preventative actions performance.

Corrective/Preventative Actions by Report ID
Standard Nonconformances by Type
Standard Nonconformances by Classification
Corrective/Preventative Actions - Last 90 Days
Corrective/Preventative Actions - This Year vs. Last Year
Report ID - Stages by Date