49+ Sample Inspection Reports

What Is An Inspection Report?

An inspection report is a systematic review of a standardized assessment conducted by an employee or a corporation. This may include things like measurements, checks, the electrical grid, and plumbing, among other things. The findings of these reports are typically compared to established specifications and guidelines in order to determine if the object or operation being reviewed is in accordance with the company’s standard inspection protocol, which ensures that it is done correctly. According to United States Department of Labor, 1,850 inspectors are responsible to ensure the health and safety of 130 million workers. 

Types of Inspections That an Inspection Report Can Be Used:

The following are the types of inspections wherein an inspector will be making use of an inspection report, check it out and see if the inspection that you will be doing fall into these types: 

 Safety: Safety inspections ensure that all equipment that will be used are safe before any employee will use it, companies that make use of this may include construction, engineering or manufacturing. With the use of safety inspection checklist, a workplace can lessen the threat of lower productivity, workplace injuries that result in costly workers compensation claims and the company can avoid fines since conducting inspections is mandated by law.  Maintenance: Inspections and maintenance go hand-in-hand, with the help of regular maintenance inspections this can help the company lessen the maintenance costs this is due to the fact that equipment that have problems can be fix earlier, employees who abuse the equipments can pinpoint earlier and it can help identify and correct repeated problems and issues.   Management: With the help of inspections, it helps the management help prevent accidents and able to provide evidence of due diligence for liability protection, it also helps determine necessary frequency of maintenance and can help control costs and protect the name and image of the company.  Manufacturing: Manufacturing companies make use of inspections as they include the measuring, testing, examining or gauging the features of a process or product. They make use of this kind of report to compare their findings with specific rules and regulations according to the criteria that they follow through. If a machine in manufacturing companies experience a failure, an inspection report can help out to carry out a failure analysis plan and determine the problems of it.   Fire equipment:  Doing regular inspections of fire equipment are found to be compulsory in most countries, this is to ensure that in case of fire, the equipment is working properly and can be used. This is why inspecting the fire equipment is very vital as this can ensure safety within the company.  Business: When businesses do international trade, before importing it from one country to another, these shipments should undergo an inspection. The importer of the items tells you which inspection company should do the job. This helps to have a proper documentation of the goods being imported and ensuring that everything is intact and correct.  Government: They include inspecting the school, restaurants, food sellers, factories, police or building works, this can help ensure the government that those establishments are safe and are not doing illegal.  Road Vehicles: There are a lot of common vehicle accidents that happen every now and then, according to health and safety authority, between 2003 and 2012 almost half of the 573 reported deaths were vehicle related. This is why, in most countries, car owners must submit their vehicles to an inspection once a year to check if their vehicles are still in good condition or not.  Home Inspection:  If you are planning to purchase a home, a home inspection should be done to ensure that the house is still in good condition or the value that you are paying for it is worth it. According to porch, 9 out of 10 homebuyers used or hired an inspector prior to purchasing their properties. In 80% cases, the buyers of the new house pay for the inspection.  Medical: You may be shocked that medical inspection exists, but yes, they do. This refers to a doctor checking a patient visually, this is a visual observation of the body through a medical examination to make sure that the patient does not have any illness or problems with their health.  Nuclear Power Plants: With nuclear power plants they do two general types of inspections, since their work is very crucial it is vital they should do a planned and reactive inspection, this may include one inspector or a team. 

How to Write an Effective Inspection Report?

A well written inspection report can lead the assigned team to do their job more efficiently and easily. So what should we take note of in order to write an effective report? Using these five steps can help you to ensure to have the best, effective and quality inspection report you can submit to your heads. Listed below are five steps to ensure than you can write the best and effective inspection report for your company:

Step 1: Know Your Audience

The target audience should be given important details. Knowing the audience requires understanding the distinctions between internal, external, executive, and confidential reports. Internal audit reports are intended for use within the company; external reports are intended for use by third parties such as vendors, service providers, consumers, and others; executive reports are generally brief; and a confidential report is a false sense of protection since these reports do not always remain confidential.

Step 2: Know The Four Sections

Step 3: Incorporate Good Writing Tips

In writing an inspection report, it should be well written and should follow similar characteristics, this may include describing facts such as the situation of the building, leakages of the house, problems found on the vehicle, equipment or electrical wirings. One of the tips that an inspector should bare in mind when writing an inspection report is to have short sentences, avoid repeating, write with clarify wherein it can be easily understood, use numbered listings or bullet forms, avoid repeating and the use of acronyms, send a short message with the first sentence if each paragraph and use a direct précises writing style. Proofreading should also be done before submitting your report to the upper management to ensure that what was written is legit and correct.

Step 4: A Formal Feedback is Needed

Responses from the upper management should be made within one or two weeks or even a month, this depends on the nature of the report. Most responses from the upper management should do a follow up meeting, proper documentation on the improvements, improvement report, timeline and assigned to whom. In order to manage follow up activities, one should consider using the original report with columns that includes the assigned to and completion. If there is no feedback form received from the upper management, the assigned inspection team should ask for a follow up from the management.

Step 5: Do A Follow Up

There may be different approaches but doing a follow up is one of the most fundamental to an action plan of an inspection report. This is because everyone can assess the priority and identify accountability, assignments, timeline by just getting a glimpse of the report. If the report is written with comprehensive outline, anyone can utilize it to be a management tool to do the follow up activity. Discussions that will be involved in doing this can help responsible persons understand the issues that will be found and can develop the best solution out of it. With proper documentation this can help prevent repeating problems in the future when creating another inspection report.

FAQs

What preparations should I do prior to the inspection?

Plan ahead what inspection criteria should be followed, required test equipment and inspection specifications. An inspector should have a plan in mind on what to do during the inspection, he should prepare the report format and his equipment that will be used to do the inspection.

What should I examine during an inspection?

Ensure that what you need to examine is ready, this may include who, what, where, when and how. An inspector should pay attention to items that are or are most likely to develop into an unsafe environment to the employees. Examining should also include areas where no work is done, such as office storage areas, locker rooms and parking lots.  Examining these areas are vital so that you can ensure that these places are not left behind and since these places are not always seen, they are most likely to rot or damage that’s why its important to include these areas in inspection.

What types of hazards do we look for in a workplace?

Due to the nature of work, workers face a lot of hazards on a daily basis, that is why it’s very important to identify the hazards and mitigate all of the risk, the following are the types of hazards, it may include safety hazards, biological hazards, chemical hazards, psychosocial hazards, physical hazards and ergonomic hazards. Looking into these hazards ensure that we don’t miss anything when doing an inspection in the workplace.

How to hire a home inspector?

Most of the time, homebuyers found their inspector with the help of their real estate agents, since they are the ones who have lots of experiences with inspectors and can help you to get the best inspector you needed. In hiring one, consider the inspectors credentials also as in this way you can ensure that your inspector is one of the best and good home inspectors can check your home.

Do I need to use a checklist?

It depends with you as the inspector, but having a checklist with you while doing inspections saves your time and helps you to be sure that you are not missing anything whilst doing the inspection. A checklist should only be used as a guide but as a good inspector you should still and always should refer to the documents that will be needed when doing the inspections. The checklist can help the inspector not miss anything and ensure that you are doing the inspection according to the requirements of the office.

What is the purpose of inspections?

The purpose of inspections is to help the company ensure that everything is safe for usage for the employees or for the client depending on what inspection you are doing. This can help you identify existing and potential hazards and can save you tons of money because you were able to address it earlier before it gets worse. If you are doing an inspection for the customer or client, this can help you to meet customer expectations, wants and needs, with this it can help the client and the company meet the inspection requirements that will be mandated for the certain inspection.

Why are workplace inspections so important?

These are important as it helps to prevent incidents, injuries, illness and problems among the employees. This can also help the workplace save money from big problems that may arise from machinery. Through this, it can help identify and record hazards and to implement a better recommendation or analysis plan. Meanwhile, if it concerns the health and safety of the employees, this can help the committee to plan, conduct and monitor more inspections. The use of workplace inspection overall can improve the health and safety of the employees, productivity and lessen the costs of the company in case of any problems that may arise.