Processing Inspection Findings

After a performed inspection you may end up with a list of findings that needs to be dealt with. You need to find and record the cause of the finding, which most likely lead to a list of actions to remedy the finding and avoid it in the future. And you may need to create some sort of response to the finding.

How to add an immediate cause to a finding?

To be better able to make the correct decision on what to do with a finding, describing the cause of it is a good starting point. TM Master v2 can record “immediate causes”, and “system causes”. The “immediate cause” would be the most apparent ones. I.E: “The reason for the finding was that the documentation was not available”. Here is how you record an immediate causes found during the analysis of the finding:

1. Click [HSSEQ] à [Inspection Overview]
2. Locate and double click (open) the Inspection with the findings you wish to process.

1. Click the “Findings” tab
2. Locate and double click (open) the finding you wish to process.
3. Click the “Cause” tab.
4. Click the [Add Immediate Cause] button
5. Fill in the “immediate Cause” details
   • Name: Enter a Cause description name
   • Type: Select a “Cause type” from the “immediate cause” types. Please refer to chapter on cause types for additional details on how to configure them.
   • Related to: For immediate causes this field will not be available. Please refer to the chapter next chapter on adding “System Causes” for more details on it.
   • Main Cause: If this is to be considered the main cause for the finding, you can tick this check box. Please note only one cause pr. finding can be considered the main cause for it.
   • Cause description: Enter a description of the cause.
6. The additional fields in the “Cause Categorization” field group, is not possible to alter in this view as it is linked to the “Cause type”, and if alterations are required this must be done in the [Cause type] module

How to add a system cause to a finding?

The chapter above described adding the “Immediate causes” for the finding, which is all well and good, but in the example used with the missing documentation, it is not that easy to prevent by taking actions based on the immediate cause description alone. We need to find and describe the reason behind the documents not being available, and this is what TM Master refers to as “system causes”. Since the exercise of asking “Why?” to any reason given may end up system causes explaining system causes, it is possible to add any number of system causes either related to the immediate cause or to another system cause.

The procedure adding a “system cause” is very similar to adding a “immediate cause” Here is how it is done.

1. Click [HSSEQ] à [Inspection Overview]
2. Locate and double click (open) the Inspection with the findings you wish to process.

1. Click the “Cause” tab
2. Select a previously added “Immediate cause” or “System cause” in the list of causes
3. Click the [Add System Cause] button
4. Fill in the “System Cause” details
   • Name: Enter a Cause description name
   • Type: Select a “Cause type” from the “System cause types”. Please refer to chapter on cause types for additional details on how to configure them.
   • Related to: This shows information on which other cause this “system cause” is directly related / linked to. It can be an “immediate cause” or another “system cause”. It is also possible to change the cause it relates to by clicking the […] button and selecting one of the other causes.
   • Main Cause: If this is to be considered the main cause for the finding, you can tick this check box. Please note only one cause pr. finding can be considered the main cause for it.
   • Cause description: Enter a description of the cause.

How to add actions to a finding?

Once you have analyzed the finding with its cause, somebody will most likely need to do something to correct and/or prevent this becoming an issue in the future. Distributing such tasks or “actions” can be managed by adding actions directly to the finding. Here is how it is done.

1.  Click [HSSEQ] à [Inspection Overview]
2. Locate and double click (open) the Inspection with the findings you wish to add an action.
3. Click the “Actions” tab
4. Click the [Add action] button.
5. Fill in the details in the action form. (ref image below)
   • Name:  This is for a name or short description for the action
   • Department: The “Department” that will be responsible for the action. All crew members with a crew type linked to this department will be able to see this action in their personal “Dashboard” if you will as actions assigned to their department.
   • Crew Type: The assigned crew type that should perform the action, all crew members of this type will be able to see this action in their personal “Dashboard”, as actions assigned to their crew type.
   • Crew: This will be the specific crew member, user (or contact) that will be responsible for this action. Users or Crew member selected will see this action in their personal “Dashboard” as assigned specifically to him or her.
   • Category: Assign a category for this action
   • Type: Is this considered a “Preventive” or “Corrective” action?
   • Priority: Assign the appropriate priority
   • Deadline: Assign a deadline/ due date for this action.
   • Action Task: Enter the description for the action to be performed

The remaining fields can’t be altered in this form and serve only as additional information:

• Due Status: All actions are considered “Due”, until they are considered “Overdue”
• Done Status: When a user starts signing out the action, he/she may indicate their progress as percent done, and it will show in this field.
• Unit: Is of course the unit/vessel the action is to be performed, which will of course be the same unit that has performed the inspection.
• Source type: Actions can so far be linked to either “Inspections”, “Incidents” or “Observations”. This field will show which of the tree the action stems from.
• Source: Will show the number for the exact “inspection”, “Observation” or “Incident, that this action stems from. The […] button at the end will open the source Incident, Inspection or Observation.
• The Action form also has a document tab, so if any additional document or files are relevant to the action, this can be attached here.
• By clicking the [Send notification] button in the top of the action form will allow you to send an email with the action details to whoever you require to notify. (This function does require TM Master v2 to be configured to connect to a mail server, if it should send external emails, otherwise it will only be sent as an internal TM Master email.