With the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002, external auditors face a new regulatory inspection process in addition to an increase in litigation (or engagement) pressure. It has been communicated that this new inspection process will place an increased emphasis on the efficiency of integrated audits while maintaining the same level of effectiveness. In an experiment, I explore how external auditors’ reliance decisions on the internal audit function will be affected by different inspection focuses, varying levels of engagement risk, and the level of risk associated with the audit test or procedure. While I expect that there will be significant main effects for inspection focus, engagement risk and the riskiness of the audit test, I explore the potential presence of a three-way interaction between these three factors. My findings suggest that the auditor reliance decisions are impacted by differing levels of engagement risk, the focus of the inspection process, and the riskiness of the audit tests. In general, as engagement risk increased, auditors’ reliance decreased. Also, as the riskiness of the audit test increased, auditors placed less reliance on the internal audit function. However, when the focus of the inspection changed, these factors interacted with one another. Specifically, when auditors faced a focus of both effectiveness and efficiency, their reliance decisions increased as engagement risk and riskiness of the test decreased, but when auditors faced a focus of effectiveness only, their reliance decisions were not impacted by the engagement risk when the riskiness of the test was high. Thus, the impact of engagement risk on auditors’ reliance decisions depends on the focus of the inspection process and the riskiness of the tests.

Abstract Purpose: Contractors usage of inspection data for the purpose of experience feedback in order to improve the production processes is unusual. The usual procedure with the usage of inspection protocols is to use them as a tool for correcting building errors discovered at the time of the inspection. This report highlights the opportunities and challenges regarding a computer aided inspection process by studying what different people in the industry think about these issues. The aim of the study is to present a proposal on the structure of a program that handles inspection data in the purpose of experience feedback and statistics. The structure shows an example on how the information from inspection statements can be sorted. Method: The authors conducted a case study of a company that works with offsite construction. The data collection was performed through semi structured interviews at the company the study focuses on and also on another company in the same industry. To be able to conduct the interviews in a satisfying way the authors conducted a document analysis of previous inspection protocols as well as a literature study through which the authors became acquainted with the current research frontier. Findings: The data collection with following analysis, among other findings, resulted in that a digital inspection process would make the categorization of errors standardised which in turn would lead to better usage of the information provided from inspections. It was also found that companies within the industry wants to use a digital tool for experience feedback. Especially for, but not limited to, the ability to get statistics over what areas in the business that need improvement. The result most closely related to the aim of the study is the points the authors believe should be included in a specification for a digital tool, for managing inspection protocols and using them for experience feedback. These points are: minimal changes by hand, easy to navigate, the ability to keep statistics over inspection findings and the possibility to adapt the structure of the digital to the specific company or inspector. Implications: The core of the problem that the report intends to investigate is the weaknesses in how industrial contractors use the information from inspections. The result indicate that a digital tool may be part of the solution. With such a tool developed, with above mentioned points in mind, many of the reoccurring errors found through inspections would be made visible through the easy access of statistics. In this way companies that uses a tool like this would have an easier time to introduce changes in their operations to minimize errors. Limitations: The report is limited by the fact that it only targets companies that is working with offsite construction in an industrialized fashion and therefore only is privileged by their views of the issues. The inspectors, whom also would be affected by such a tool, is not included in this study. Keywords: ICT, experience feedback, offsite construction, inspection process, requirements engineering. Content is described in Swedish below. / Sammanfattning Syfte: Att industriella byggföretag använder sig av besiktningsprotokoll för erfarenhetsåterföring med syfte att förbättra produktionsprocessen är ovanligt. Det vanliga förfarandet handlar närmast om att använda protokollen enbart som åtgärdslistor för de fel som uppdagas vid besiktningstillfället. Denna rapport belyser möjligheter och utmaningar med en datorstödd besiktningsprocess genom att utreda vad olika personer i den industriella modulbyggbranschen tycker i dessa frågor. Arbetets mål är att presentera ett förslag på struktur för ett program som hanterar besiktningsanmärkningar för erfarenhetsåterföring. Strukturen ska visa hur informationen från besiktningsutlåtandena kan sorteras. Metod: Rapportförfattarna har utfört en fallstudie på ett företag inom industriellt modulbyggande. Datainsamlingen skedde genom semi-strukturerade intervjuer på företaget fallstudien fokuserar på och på ett annat företag i samma bransch. För att genomföra intervjuerna på ett bra sätt genomfördes en dokumentanalys av slut-besiktningsprotokoll från tidigare färdigställda projekt och det gjordes en litteratur-studie där rapportförfattarna bekantade sig med den nuvarande forskningsfronten i ämnet. Resultat: Sammantaget resulterade datainsamlingen, och analysen av denna, bland annat i att en digitaliserad besiktningsprocess hade kunnat göra kategoriseringen av fel standardiserad och att man då i högre grad kan utnyttja informationen i besiktnings-protokollen. Det visar sig också att de industriella byggföretagen i branschen vill använda sig av ett digitalt verktyg för erfarenhetsåterföring, framförallt men inte enbart för att få statistik över vilka områden i verksamheten som behöver förbättras. Det resultat som närmast svarar mot målet är de punkter som rapportförfattarna anser bör ingå i en kravspecifikation för ett digitalt verktyg för hantering av besiktningsprotokoll och erfarenhetsåterföring från dessa. Punkterna som rapportförfattarna kommer fram till är: minimal handpåläggning, lättnavigerat, möjlighet att föra statistik över besiktningsanmärkningar samt möjlighet att anpassa strukturen av det digitala verktyget utefter krav hos det specifika företaget eller besiktningsmannen. Konsekvenser: Kärnan i problemet som rapporten ämnar utreda är brister i hur industriella byggföretag i dagsläget använder sig av informationen i slut-besiktningsprotokoll. Rapportens resultat indikerar att ett digitalt verktyg kan vara en del i lösningen på problemet. Med ett sådant verktyg utvecklat efter ovan nämnda punkter som grund skulle många återkommande fel som idag upptäcks på slutbesiktningar synliggöras genom lättillgänglig statistik. På så sätt kan företag som använder ett sådant verktyg lättare införa förändringar i verksamheten för att minimera fel. Begränsningar: Rapporten begränsas i den mening att den endast riktar sig mot företag inom industriellt modulbyggande och då enbart deras åsikter i frågorna. Besiktningsmännen som också skulle påverkas av ett sådant verktyg ingår ej i studien. Nyckelord: ICT, erfarenhetsåterföring, industriellt byggande, besiktningsprocessen, requirements engineering.

This thesis participates to the effort launched after the Fukushima-Daiichi disaster to improve the robustness of national institutions involved in nuclear safety because of the role that the failing nuclear regulator had in the accident. The driving idea is to investigate how engineering techniques used in high-risk industries can be applied to institutions involved in nuclear safety to improve their robustness. The thesis focuses specifically on the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the British nuclear regulator, and its process for structured inspections. The first part of the thesis demonstrates that the hazard and operability (HAZOP) technique, used in the nuclear industry to identify hazards associated with an activity, can be adapted to qualitatively assess the robustness of organisational processes. The HAZOP method was applied to the ONR inspection process and led to the identification of five significant failures or errors. These are: failure to focus on an area/topic deserving regulatory attention; failure to evaluate an area/topic of interest; failure to identify a non-compliance; failure to identify the underlying issue, its full extent and/or safety significance and failure to adequately share inspection findings. In addition, the study identified the main causal chains leading to each failure. The safeguards of the process, i.e. the mechanisms in place to prevent, detect, resolve and mitigate possible failures, were then analysed to assess the robustness of the inspection process. The principal safeguard found is the superintending inspector who performs reviews of inspection reports and debriefs inspectors after inspections. It was concluded that the inspection process is robust provided recruitment and training excellence. However, given the predominant role of the superintending inspector, the robustness of the process could be improved by increasing the diversity of safeguards. Finally, suggestions for improvement were made such as establishing a formal handover procedure between former and new site inspectors, formalising and generalising the shadowing scheme between inspectors and setting minimum standards for inspection debriefs. These results were shared with ONR, which had reached the same conclusions independently, thus validating the new application for the HAZOP method. The second part of the thesis demonstrates that computational modelling techniques can be used to build digital twins of institutions involved in safety which can then be used to assess their effectiveness. The knowledge learned thanks to the HAZOP study was used in association with computational modelling techniques to build a digital twin of the ONR and its structural inspection process along with a simple model of a nuclear plant. The model was validated using the face-validity and predictive validation processes. They respectively involved an experienced ONR inspector checking the validity of the model’s procedures and decision-making processes and comparing the model’s output for oversight work done to data provided by the ONR. The effectiveness of the ONR was then evaluated using a scenario where a hypothetical, newly discovered phenomenon threatens the integrity of the plant, with ONR inspectors gradually learning and sharing new information about it. Monte-Carlo simulation was used to estimate the cost of regulatory oversight and the probability that the ONR model detects and resolves the issue introduced before it causes an accident. Different arrangements were tested and in particular with a superintending inspector reviewing inspection reports and a formal information sharing process. For this scenario, these two improvements were found to have a similar impact on the success probability. However, the former achieves it for only half the cost.

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Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-11T14:02:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 fabio.pdf: 4867233 bytes, checksum: 50fd99e07e3a0dec4c10f9701864abed (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-03-03 / Usability Inspections are methods used to verify the software s quality in relation to its interaction with users. The applications acceptability is directly related to their usability. Thus, the goal of this work is to develop ways to assist the inspection execution, providing better costeffectiveness. In this thesis, we present an assistant to support the inspection process with a focus on usability of traditional software applications and Web applications. This wizard, called APIU, aims at reducing the time spent during the inspection execution and to achieve better management of the inspection process. The wizard s requirements were defined based on practical experience in inspections and usability testing as well as studies found in current literature. This thesis presents how the proposed APIU assistant was defined and developed, the context in which it can be used, as well as studies for the improvement of the wizard. / As inspeções de usabilidade são métodos utilizados com o objetivo de verificar a qualidade de um software em relação à interação com os usuários. A aceitabilidade das aplicações está diretamente ligada à usabilidade das mesmas. Desta forma, o objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver meios que auxiliem a execução de uma inspeção, dotando essa atividade de melhor custo-benefício. Esta dissertação propõe um assistente de apoio ao processo de inspeção de usabilidade, o APIU, voltado para aplicações de software tradicionais e aplicações Web. Este assistente de apoio objetiva reduzir o esforço gasto durante a execução de uma inspeção e apoiar um melhor gerenciamento da mesma. Este assistente teve seus requisitos definidos a partir de experiências práticas em inspeções e testes de usabilidade, além do estudo de trabalhos disponíveis na literatura. Esta dissertação apresenta como o APIU foi definido e desenvolvido, o contexto em que ele pode ser empregado e os estudos realizados para o aprimoramento do assistente.