New tool enhances AF safety inspections, assessments and evaluations

  • Published
  • By Keith Wright
  • Air Force Safety Center Public Affairs
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  A new module has been launched through the Air Force Safety Automated System on May 17, arming safety professionals AF-wide with a single method to document and track both spot and annual inspections, as well as safety assessments and evaluations at a local and enterprise level.

Created in 2007 by the Air Force Safety Center, AFSAS is the unique safety reporting system used by the Air Force to collect and maintain safety-related data, record mishap investigations, and track mitigation and abatement of hazards for all safety disciplines.

This new capability provides safety professionals and commanders with a single user-friendly tool to identify and track hazards across their installations and increase visibility of all hazards AF-wide.

The inspection module incorporates the communication and tracking of identified Risk Assessment Code 1 through 5 hazards with the added ability to automatically transfer 1, 2 and 3 coded hazards to the formal Master Hazard Abatement Program. This capability expands Air Force visibility of more than 1,000 Risk Assessment Code 1, 2 and 3 hazards, as well as allowing for the management of $142 million in abatement costs.

“This new module will eliminate the myriad of paper processes and shadow databases safety offices have used for decades,” said Senior Master Sgt. Jakob Kurtz, chief of the Air Force Occupational Safety Investigation, Reports, and Analysis Branch. “Everyone benefits when inspection processes are streamlined, consistent, and visible at the enterprise level.”

The inspection module will help safety inspectors by synchronizing the access to and use of 30,000 general industry standards from the Occupational Safety & Health Administration Inspection System, ensuring inspection findings and references are consistent with federal law requirements.

“Including general industry standards in the inspection module is a key element of the transition from Air Force instructions to OSHA federal laws and regulations,” said Bill Parsons, Air Force chief of occupational safety. “Safety professionals will now be able to search and reference federal standards during their inspections, assessments and evaluations, as well as while generating the related reports.”

The module also provides standardized templates for communicating inspection, assessment, and evaluation results electronically to leadership at all levels, increasing the efficiency of report generation and tracking through the coordination process.

Additionally, the module will provide over 900 safety professionals the ability to pull data and trend identified hazards, enabling the Air Force to mitigate and abate those hazards and reduce risks before they lead to mishaps.
Prior to deployment of this module, Air Force major commands participated in user acceptance testing and provided comments to the developers. This feedback resulted in end-user perspective adjustments to the module and buy-in from the field.

“AFSAS is continuously evolving to meet the growing needs of Air Force safety professionals,” said Frank Svet, deputy chief of the Information Technology and Cyberspace Operations Division at AFSEC. “One intent for this new capability is for safety personnel in the future to utilize a mobile device to perform an inspection, assessment or evaluation and upload their findings right away.”

The inspection module is accessible 24/7 worldwide with a Controlled Access Card through the AFSAS website. This is one more improvement in AFSAS on the road to making it the single comprehensive IT tool for the Air Force Safety Management System.