Audit Management Software for Mining

Mine examinations and audits: shift-by-shift records the rules prescribe

Mining turns inspection into a legal routine measured in shifts. A competent person examines each working place before work starts, the record has to be made before the shift ends, and a corrected condition must be written back to the same record. Underground coal adds pre-shift examinations tied to fixed time windows. An audit tool used here is really an examination log with a corrective loop, used by people who may be underground for most of the day.

That makes three things decisive: capture without connectivity, a record that stays attributable when devices are shared, and a way to link each examination to the district or working place in the mine's inspection scheme. Periodic management-system audits then sit on top of those daily records.

Contract miners and shared equipment complicate the record. Check how a device shared at the lamp room attributes each examination to the right examiner, and how a contractor crew's examinations appear in the operator's records.

Rules that shape this evaluation

• 30 CFR 56.18002, US MSHA metal and nonmetal mines: a competent person examines each working place at least once each shift before miners begin work; the record, made before the end of the shift, names the examiner, date, areas and adverse conditions, and later notes when a condition was corrected.
• 30 CFR 75.360, US MSHA underground coal: a certified person makes a preshift examination within 3 hours before each 8-hour interval in which anyone works or travels underground.
• Mines Regulations 2014, regulation 14 (Great Britain): the mine operator keeps a written inspection scheme dividing the mine into districts, appoints competent inspectors, and ensures reports record significant defects and the steps taken to remedy them.
• Directive 92/104/EEC, Article 3 (EU): mineral-extracting employers keep an up-to-date safety and health document showing that risks were assessed and that workplaces and equipment are designed, used and maintained safely.

Summarised from the linked official texts, read on 25 September 2026. This is buyer context, not legal advice: have the responsible specialists confirm which requirements apply to your sites.

How the operating context changes the buying criteria

"Works offline" is too coarse a label for a mine. Ask what the device actually holds once it goes underground: only the blank checklist, or also the previous examination of the same working place and the corrective actions still open there. An examiner who cannot see yesterday's open defect will record it again as a new one, and the history of that place splits in two. Ask also what happens at the surface: whether records synchronise on their own at the lamp room or at a network point, how a clash is settled when two examiners edit the same place, and how the time stamp is set when a device clock has drifted during a long period without signal.

Shift handover is the second filter. In a mine one shift's unresolved defect is the next shift's first task, so judge the tool on whether the incoming supervisor can see, before travelling to the face, every adverse condition the outgoing crew left open, and whether the outgoing examiner can mark a condition as handed over rather than closed. Contract crews for drilling, haulage and maintenance add a third test: their examinations should appear in the operator's records under the contractor's name, without giving that contractor sight of districts it does not work in. Ground conditions, ventilation, electrical equipment and mobile machinery each need their own short checklist, so the ability to build and version many small checklists matters more than a large template library.

Questions to settle for this combination

1. Can each examination be tied to a working place or district from the mine's inspection scheme, not just a free-text location?
2. Can an examiner complete and time-stamp a record underground and have it reach the surface before the shift ends?
3. When a condition is corrected, is the correction added to the original examination record rather than a new one?
4. How are records attributed on shared or cap-lamp-room devices, and can a certified examiner's status be recorded?
5. Can daily examination records roll up into the periodic audit of the safety and health document?

Further questions for each vendor

• Which data does a device hold for a district while it is offline: the form only, or also the last examination and the open actions for that place?
• When two examiners reach the same working place in one shift and both synchronise late, how does the tool order and reconcile their records?
• If a named examiner is relieved mid-shift, can the examination be reassigned so that the record shows both people and the time of the change?
• Is an examiner's appointment held as a record with an expiry date, or only as a free-text field on the user?
• Can an adverse condition raise an action against a named item of equipment, and show the equipment's open actions to whoever examines it next?
• What does mine management see at the end of a shift when a district's examination has not been completed?

What an inspector or auditor typically asks to see

• For a given working place and date, the examination record: who examined it, when, which areas, and which adverse conditions were found. An inspector reviewing an accident will usually want the examination that preceded it.
• The record of when each reported condition was corrected, by whom, and whether the correction was written back to the examination in which it was found.
• Evidence that the examiner was appointed and qualified for that district on that day, where the rules require a competent or certified person.
• The mine's written inspection scheme or equivalent plan, with proof that the examinations carried out match its districts and frequencies.
• Contractor examinations and handover notes for the same shift, in sequence with the operator's own.

Which documented capabilities matter most here

For mining the offline classification is the signal to read first, and a published price comes last, because it says nothing about whether the product can record a district examination without signal. A product classified as documented offline still has to show an examination of a named working place in your demo, and a partial classification means the vendor's own material leaves part of the workflow online: ask which part. The category line tells you whether examinations and audits are the product's core job or a module of a wider platform.

Signals in the researched records of the listed products:

• Matched through a sourced tag or a documented capability rather than the primary category: Emex, Cority, Enablon, HSI Donesafe, myosh, Accupoint, Assignar and Procore Quality & Safety.
• On this list for another reason, such as an industry tag, with no sourced match to the category: SafeContractor.
• Offline use, as classified in the records: a documented offline workflow: Emex, Cority, Enablon and HSI Donesafe; a partial offline workflow: myosh, Accupoint, Assignar and Procore Quality & Safety. No classification yet for 1 of the 9.
• A published price amount is on record for Emex, myosh and SafeContractor; the other 6 need a quote.

Vendor-material signals, not test results; the commercial partner is not counted; no signal means not established.

A demo script for this combination

Ask each vendor to run these steps with synthetic data. They are demo requests, not observed vendor results.

1. Set up two districts from a synthetic inspection scheme and assign a shift examination for each to a named competent person.
2. Complete one examination offline, recording an adverse condition, and synchronise it before the simulated end of shift.
3. Record the correction against the original examination rather than as a new record.
4. Produce the examination history for one working place for the last month.