Question

Contrast the audit of corporation and the inspection of a house by a home inspector?

Answer 1

Audit and Investigation are two different fields. Following points explains the same :-

Audits are typically performed less frequently than inspections. The goal of an audit is usually to assess overall compliance with one or more regulations, internal policies, or other compliance drivers. Audits are typically conducted by a third-party to the site being audited, which could include an auditor from a corporate department or an auditor completely external to the company. Audits also allow a company to “self-check” to make sure everything is fine. Corporate-level compliance managers and audit program managers are constantly seeking ways to automate and improve the management of audits.

Inspections are typically the recurring completion of checklists by facility-level personnel, such as facility EHS coordinators and managers. Inspections can be thought of as compliance tasks with checklists. For example, an inspection can be a targeted verification to see if a specific equipment or process is operating in a safe and environmentally harmless way. Corporate- or site-level EHS managers and coordinators, who need to implement a compliance system within a company or site, seek ways to improve the way inspections are conducted.

Difference

At a high level, inspections are a “do” and audits are a “check”. An inspection is typically something that a site is required to do by a compliance obligation. An audit is the process of checking that compliance obligations have been met, including that the required inspections have been done. For example, an environmental operating permit may require a facility to do an inspection weekly on a piece of equipment to ensure it is operating correctly. The corporation may then conduct an annual audit to check compliance with the requirement to do the inspections.