Conducting Virtual Environmental, Health, and Safety Audits
Challenge
Antea Group received a Request for Proposal (RFP) from a chemical and plastics manufacturer in mid-August 2020 to complete virtual EHS audits at 13 US-based facilities between September and December 2020. The audits required one environmental and one health and safety auditor to support the clients lead auditor in these five-day virtual audits. The client needed the audits to be completed by the end of 2020 in order to meet their 2020 EHS audit scope and budget commitments.
The client had an existing mature corporate EHS audit program and was challenged to complete their US audit program in a short timeframe as the COVID-19 pandemic had created significant delays with implementing the audits sooner.
Solution
Just two weeks after the receipt of the RFP, the Antea Group client leader and audit service team submitted a comprehensive proposal and convened a team of senior auditors composed of regular full-time consultants and two part-time casual consultants. This team was able to secure the aggressive audit schedule and timing commitments and conduct the audits to meet client deadlines.
The remote nature of the audits required the use of a client-administered SharePoint site for reviewing documents and required the audited sites to use client-owned equipment to conduct streaming video tours of their facility operations to the audit team.
Result
The audit team was able to complete all 13 EHS audits according to the schedule indicated by the client, so they could maintain their 2020 EHS audit program goals. All audits were completed on time and under budget.
The nature of this client audit program provided a good platform for our auditors and audit service line team members to participate in virtual client audits and evaluate opportunities for improvement in our own virtual audit services.
