Optimization of safety audit planning: a case study of process plant in India

Safety audit is a system for evaluating the adherence of an occupational safety and health plan to fulfill statutory requirements with prior planning. Safety audit planning is the predetermining activity of what, how, where, when and by whom the audit will be carried out to achieve its objective. Safety audit planning is a complex process and an anticipatory function which will provide audit activity on time with the least audit risk and cost by assigning the auditors with the required ability and skill level to the activities to be audited. In general, the safety audit planning is based on the professional judgment of a lead auditor by considering the qualitative characteristics of the auditors. However, the audit planning is possible by framing a mathematical model with an assumption that the auditors possess similar characteristics. The objective of the study is to optimize the safety audit planning by allocating auditors to activities using a linear programming model so as to minimize the audit cost; which is not possible with statistical tools. The study was conducted in an integrated cement plant located in India and the results of the study show that the number of hours and the activity of the auditors was specified with a minimum cost. Similar studies can be conducted to optimize time and cost of safety audit for industrial units involving more number of activities with large batch size of auditors by planning the audit process in advance.