All businesses need to conduct maintenance every now and then to guarantee the safety of their workplaces and equipment. Such activity includes different processes, like making a quality control plan and an audit plan. The very purpose of doing so is to evaluate the current status of the organizations’ projects, products, and services. It helps make sure that these undertakings have no defects or help identify and mitigate the defects if there is any. Moreover, maintenance is very common in the construction sites of residential and commercial properties, as well as in vehicle manufacturing companies. If you plan to conduct maintenance on your company’s operations, then you must be ready to document them in an inspection report. Learn more about such a report through our article and examples below!
An inspection report is a legal document that records the procedures and findings during an inspection. Inspection, by its business definition, entails examining and assessing of a particular operation, project, product, or service. Through it, organizations can determine what rooms for improvement are present, and what issues exist. The discovery of these factors will lead to the refinement of the departmental or overall functions of a company, while also taking into account the mitigation or elimination of faults. Moreover, the results of its assessments are crucial in making the succeeding activities successful. Because of this, the entire process of inspection is written in a document that professionals refer to as a report to remind and guide the future undertakings of a company.
Reports play significant roles in the world of business. In Zach Lazzari’s article for AZCentral entitled The Importance of Business Reports, the document is defined as a tool to track and analyze both performance and the overall health of a business. If well-written, it can identify snags and, at the same time, draw opportunities for improvement. The importance of a report can be summarized into three things. First, it is a critical element in job safety analysis, sales analysis, target market analysis, and many more. Second, it is a good basis for setting short-term goals and long-term goals, as well as the key performance indicators (KPIs). Lastly, it is significant to business because it helps stakeholders in formulating their plans and decision criteria.
In making an inspection report, there are a lot of things you have to put into consideration. Aside from utilizing your skills in technical writing, you also have to make sure that your paperwork is complete with all the necessary aspects. There’s no need for you to hassle yourself in researching what needs to be accounted for because we have an outline ready for you! Check it out below!
As its name implies, a cover page is the very front of a business document. They are provided to enable readers to identify what your document is about in just a glance. In addition, they must be included to make your report formal. Inside it, the title, author, report date, and the inspection subject must be included.
Including a summary of the entire inspection report prepares readers to take note of the important details. In writing it, the irrelevant or less important pieces of information should be taken out. And with that, the main idea of your whole report will stand out. Thus, it helps readers get the gist of the report’s content.
Inspections are done in each phase of a project. To avoid confusing your readers, you have to specify what inspection you are currently documenting and why the inspection was conducted.
After presenting the purpose of the inspection, enumerate and describe all the details about the inspection. This means that you have to explain all the strategies that have been made to make the inspection successful. Additionally, there’s a need for you to illustrate visual elements that can encapsulate the inspection process, like a flowchart. Timelines, schedules, and other graphic representations must also be included.
The inspection process consists of observations, evaluations, and analysis. All three activities have a corresponding output that the stakeholders must know of. So, you have to disclose those findings. In doing so, include a brief explanation about the methodologies of the aforementioned evaluations and analysis.
Before you finalize your inspection report, make sure to mention the people who helped you gather data. As per the standard procedure of a formal document, you’re gonna need to cite all the references you have used. The sources that you’ve cited will play vital roles in future inspections.
There are five types of data analysis. They include text analysis, statistical analysis, diagnostic analysis, predictive analysis, and prescriptive analysis.
An inspection process has three stages, including the following:
1. Preparatory – the inspectors review if the KPIs and criteria are up to the current standards
2. Initial Inspection – the inspectors verify if the requirements have been met
3. Follow-Up – the inspectors monitor the daily progress of a certain operation and make sure standards will be met
The different types of reports include feasibility reports, annual reports, compliance reports, justification reports, memos, meeting minutes, expense reports, audit reports, progress reports, and closure reports.
It was well-established above how inspections contribute to a company’s maintenance. Knowing that an inspection is a long process, it has to be documented properly to keep a safe record of the data and methodologies it gathered and used. These pieces of information will be one of the very basis of another inspection that will surely take place in the future. Apart from those advantages, the inspection report is also a factor that influences the decision making of the subject, while assisting in setting the operational goals and KPIs.
