Once the records review is complete, the officer will begin their walk-through of the facility. The route and duration of the inspection are determined by the compliance officer and it will either be partial or comprehensive. For most inspections, a company should have a safety professional accompany the inspector. If it is a fatality investigation, then upper management and maybe even legal representation should be along. Regardless, someone from the company needs to be with the inspection at all times.
A partial inspection is one where the focus is limited to certain potentially hazardous areas, conditions, or practices at your workplace. A comprehensive inspection, on the other hand, is defined as a “substantially” complete inspection of the potentially high hazard areas of a workplace. This is sometimes referred to as a “wall-to-wall” inspection.