Laboratory and Pilot Plant Safety Audits: How to Use Them to Avoid Accidents and Improve Safety Performance

Laboratory and pilot plant safety audits are an important and often overlooked tool for improving an organization’s safety awareness and performance. An audit, unlike a routine safety inspection, is something that occurs less frequently and generally should utilize outside personnel (a ‘cold eyes” type review). It’s purpose is to let someone else review your equipment, facilities, and programs and offer their advice on areas that appear to need improvement or that may be being overlooked or their hazards unrecognized. The fact that the personnel doing the audit come from outside the organization allows then to look at your routine activities in a different light. This new perspective often highlights issues that escape everyone’s attention, no matter how committed nor how diligent.