Given all the time spent on inspections, it is worth making sure they’re delivering benefits to business operations and customers. CSM Business and Mobility offers a quick guide to achieving this goal.
For many Australian infrastructure firms, the daily inspection is often viewed as little more than a necessary burden of compliance.
“Businesses conduct inspections to ensure assets, equipment, and processes operate safely, reliably, and in compliance with regulations,” says CSM Business and Mobility’s Robert Ward.
However, there is a growing divide between organisations that treat these processes as mere busywork and those that leverage them to generate business value.
Ward says moving beyond a paper-based mindset is the first step toward operational efficiency and the foundation of any high-performing inspection starts with a clear understanding of the ‘why’.
“What purpose does it serve? Who is filling it in? What is done with the output?” Ward says.
“Someone might answer the purpose of the inspection is to comply with regulations and the output is filed away in case of a lawsuit. But, especially in the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI), there is a lot of scope to extract the information locked up in these checklist forms and turn them from reactive records into proactive outcomes.”
Creating an effective tool requires collaboration between those who know the assets and those who handle the tools.
Ward breaks this down into two critical groups: subject matter experts and the checklist users themselves.
Subject matter experts are the people who know the asset or topic area that is the subject of the checklist. They may know the asset itself, for example the intricacies of a railway switchgear, or they may know the servicing of an asset, such as how to accurately take a measurement.
Inspection checklist users are the people who will use the checklist, such as a maintenance technician who knows the logical way to work through the inspection to avoid double-up on activities and get the most accurate readings.
Ward says the technical design of questions significantly impacts data quality. Effective forms avoid ambiguity by demanding specific, factual answers.
“Instead of asking if a guardrail ‘looks okay,’ a professional checklist asks if it is ‘securely fastened with no visible damage’,” he says.
“Ask the question so it’s clear what type of answer is required. Good measurement questions, like recording gas line pressure in kPa (kilopascals), or specific rating questions for cabinet conditions, ensure high quality.
“Electronic checklists can even include validations to make sure the answer aligns to the expected type, preventing mistakes before the inspector even submits a value.”
Conciseness is equally important for inspectors working in demanding field conditions. Ward says that keeping wording action-oriented minimises fatigue.
For example, “Is there any fraying on the wiring?” is far more effective than a long-winded request to “examine the wiring and ensure no signs of degradation”.
Organisations should also align the answer type to the specific information needed. While a picture can tell a thousand words, it is a slow substitute for a simple yes/no response. Conversely, optical character recognition (OCR) is often a faster and more accurate way to capture text codes than manual typing.
The layout of the checklist must also follow the natural flow of the work. This means organising questions by physical movement – such as outside-to-inside – or by process flow, moving from shutdown and isolation to inspection and eventual start-up.
“Sectioning makes the checklist easier to navigate, supports faster training, and improves the quality of recorded data,” Ward says.
“Electronic questionnaire show/hide rules can apply to whole sections as well as questions, making checklist configuration faster and easier. Inspectors work faster and more accurately when the checklist feels predictable, so be consistent in style, layout, format, and answer types throughout the form.”
Technology can help get the most out of these best practices, which is where CSM Business and Mobility steps in.
The Australian-based consulting and software implementation company specialises in mobile-first solutions and can liaise directly with companies to help optimise vital business processes.
As well as advice and design for field service system implementations, it offers the WorksiteOps work execution system for mobile devices which includes best-in-class inspections handling, AI assistance, full offline completion, and advanced scenarios such as OCR, context-based checklists, and output reports.
Ward says that by adhering to these universal best practices, infrastructure firms can move from merely documenting the past to proactively protecting their future performance.
“The limitations of an inspection checklist will only be truly revealed by live use in the field,” he says.
“Too often, a good checklist at the time of implementation is regularly updated to become a great checklist over the first three months and then slowly deteriorates to become a terrible checklist over the next five years.
“Avoid this by creating a structured review process that takes place every six to 12 months, implement any changes, and then be content until the next review cycle. This rhythm also avoids change fatigue from responding to every new suggestion and tweak.”
Building an inspection checklist
- Define the purpose: Understand what goal the inspection serves, who will complete it, and how the results will be used.
- Collaborate: Engage subject matter experts who understand the asset and the technicians who will perform the work.
- Design for factual answers: Write clear, specific questions that remove ambiguity.
- Focus on one item at a time: Ensure each question covers only a single component to avoid confusion and ensure comprehensive data collection.
- Optimise for the field: Use concise, action-oriented wording and ensure the layout follows the natural physical or process flow of work.
- Leverage electronic features: Use digital tools to conditionally show or hide questions, pre-fill data where possible, and include required reference ranges or past measurements at the point of use.
- Maintain consistency: Keep styles, layouts, and answer formats predictable throughout the form so inspectors can work faster and more accurately.
- Implement a review cycle: Establish a structured process to review and update the checklist every six to 12 months.
- Use technology and AI: Use AI to help draft better questions or validate your checklist against best practices to ensure high-quality outputs.
