One of the most vital tasks of an internal auditor, especially if she is making a risk-

based audit, is to identify the most relevant risks in the organization that could adversely
affect its operations. Through this, appropriate actions could be taken to mitigate the
threats.

In the case of a certain US food processing plant, amputations and several cases of
injuries of their employees during their operations were reported. Due to this, their
operations were postponed and they incurred huge losses. If the main cause of the
amputation incidents would not be resolved, another accident might occur and
completely ruin the image of the company.

In order to find the root of the problem, the company hired the services of the Machine
Safety Specialist (MSS) to audit their plants. The result of their audit in a single plant of
the company shows that most of the plant’s machines have either high risks or medium
risks.

This implies that various risk reduction procedures should be applied in the use of these
machines. The company may also consider buying a new set of safer machines to use
which would be costly. Proper training of their employees and supervision to ensure that
they know and apply the safety measures while operating the machines could be a
solution.

The MSS hired by the company gave machine safeguarding specifications for the
machines and had it all fabricated. They also gave safety verification services and were
completely integrated during the design reviews of the machine. They also made sure
that the machines are in compliance with all the legal requirements and validated and
verified the same to various safety standards. Lastly, once the machines are re-installed
on site together with the new additions, MSS inspected all machine safeguarding and
validated the functional safety systems. 

Through all this modifications and additional safety measures, the risks of all the
equipment went down to either low or negligible.

In the end, the audit made by MSS helped the company mitigate the risks of their
machines and prevented the continuance of the mutations and accidents in the
company’s plants. Through identifying the relevant risks in the company, which is the
machines lacking safeguarding and safety systems, the company was able to reduce
the risks of the machine as well as the risk of the company’s image from being ruined.
Thereafter, the plant’s operations will be able to go smoothly and hopefully recover its
losses quickly.