EM 385-1-1 Daily Safety Inspection Requirements.

Who Inspects, and How Often

The APP must provide for frequent safety inspections and audits by contractor Quality Control and the SSHO, and inspections of the work sites, material, and equipment, to make sure they comply with the APP and the manual, must be conducted at least daily by the SSHO and QC (paragraph 2-5.b(1)). The same duty appears in the SSHO's responsibilities, which include conducting daily safety inspections and maintaining a deficiency tracking system (paragraph 2-4.b(3)), and in Quality Control's, which is to conduct daily safety inspections and document the findings in daily logs (paragraph 2-4.h).

What the Written Log Must Show

Paragraph 2-5.b(1) requires the inspections to be documented on a written log that includes:

• The name of the inspector and the date of the inspection
• The areas and operations inspected
• The hazards identified
• The recommended corrective actions and who is responsible for addressing them
• The estimated and actual dates of correction

The inspection report goes into the contractor's daily production report, such as the daily QC report, and is made available to the Contracting Officer, COR, or local Safety and Occupational Health Office on request. Follow-up inspections to confirm that deficiencies were corrected are documented in inspection reports too (paragraph 2-5.b(1)(a) and (b)).

The Deficiency Tracking System

The SSHO establishes and maintains a deficiency tracking system that lists and monitors outstanding deficiencies until they're resolved (paragraph 2-5.b(2)). The manual describes it as a chronological log with the date each deficiency was identified, a description, the person responsible for correcting it, the projected resolution date, and the date resolved. The log is posted on the safety bulletin board, or a notice says where it is, and a monthly evaluation of the data should be discussed in the QC or safety meeting with everyone on the project (paragraph 2-8.f(3)).

Competent Person Inspections

On top of the SSHO and QC inspections, individual chapters assign their own inspections to competent persons. A few examples:

• Scaffolds: a competent person inspects scaffolds and components before each work shift and after any occurrence that could affect structural integrity, and records it on the scaffold tag (paragraphs 22-5.a and 22-5.c)
• Excavations: a competent person conducts documented inspections before each work shift and throughout it as the work dictates, after every rainstorm or other hazard-increasing event, and when signs like fissures, sloughing, or water seepage appear (paragraph 25-5.a)
• Fall protection: users inspect their equipment before each use, and a competent person inspects systems and equipment at least semi-annually and after a fall (paragraph 21-5.a)
• Rigging: a qualified rigger inspects rigging and hardware before use on each shift (paragraph 15-5.a)

The SSHO's daily inspection is where those threads come together, and a log that shows what was found, who owns it, and when it closed tells the story of a well-run site. Our SSHO staffing page covers the people who do this work every day, and our compliance audits check whether your inspections and records hold up.