Planning for Future Regulatory and Compliance Changes

U.S. manufacturers pay approximately 25% of all environmental, workplace, economic, and tax-compliance regulation dollars annually, according to the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy. While nearly all industries face new regulations, this amounts to over $160 billion that is shouldered by the manufacturing sector.

Regulatory compliance can be costly, but its impact may be less severe if manufacturers plan in advance for new standards and regulations. Since compliance is mandatory, executives often find their businesses are in a constant loop of implementation – reacting to the next set of regulatory mandates.

Establishing an early warning system for regulatory monitoring will act as a barometer and will help identify potential challenges. However, you may still need to move to rapid action to comply. While it is impossible to predict all future regulatory policies, revisiting your compliance audit checklist regularly will put you in a position to move quickly.

Ensuring that your infrastructure is updated, building systems are modernized, superior process and sustainability improvements are adopted, and safety measures are implemented, will put you well on the road to meeting new regulations. If your competitors are still in a reactive mode, they risk operational volatility and loss of profit.

What is a Compliance Audit Checklist?

In any industry, there are certain codes, laws, and regulations that must be followed. It could be for safety, environmental, liveability, or any number of other reasons. Although no compliance laws are ever “easy,” you just can’t start building a manufacturing plant on land already zoned residential.

Throughout Missouri, the Midwest, and the United States, there are regulatory requirements in order to make sure stakeholders – direct or indirect – are protected. This means everyone: Business owners, clients/customers, neighboring structures or land, workers, the environment, and so forth. There are compliance checklists for industry standards, business processes, operating procedures that cover health and safety, and others.

In simplest terms, these applicable laws are in place to ensure an organization has met all regulatory requirements for operation. There are compliance audit checklists for management systems, accounting practices, educational institutions, and almost every other marketplace under the sun.

As a construction and facility contractor, we’ll concentrate on specific regulations you’ll need to address in order to legally operate your business. Remember, these codes are in place to protect you from legal issues that may arise in the future and should be used as a form of risk management.

Compliance Considerations

Site Planning
You’ve found the perfect plot of land for your manufacturing business. Plenty of room for the structure, parking for employees and guests, and just close enough to major shipping channels. Before you buy and begin construction, consider the following questions.

• Zoning – Is the land zoned for manufacturing, agricultural, residential, or other commercial purposes? Although you may be able to convince a zoning committee to grant you rights, it could cost a lot of money and unnecessary headaches.
• Easements – How much space is required between your structure and neighboring plots of land? Is there existing infrastructure in place (power, roads, water, etc.) that you’ll have access to or will you need to build your own? Depending on location, you may be limited to how tall your structure can be.
• Environmental – How does the land drain? Will you be dealing with hazardous waste? Will there be damage to neighboring wetlands and what needs to happen to mitigate that damage?

Safety
While site planning should have taken care of any external potential environmental hazards, you still need to think about the internal operations. Are you providing safe work conditions? In an existing workplace, are new regulations threatening your operation? Or are you nimble enough to make the required changes?

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration often update their codes to address new concerns in the workplace. These are put in place to protect your workers from unsafe conditions as well as give you guidelines to safeguard your company against potential lawsuits.

This is mostly a concern in newer facilities. Providing first aid stations (complete with eye-washing stations if necessary), handrails or fall protection when necessary, proper HVAC systems to remove and filter airborne contaminants, and even proper signage all come into play when considering compliance.

Project Management
You should also have external or internal auditors on hand to keep an eye on the project as a whole. In the construction industry, deadlines, finances, and other aspects can spiral out of control quickly. Whether it’s the price of materials, unexpected weather conditions, or other volatile circumstances, you’ll need someone to evaluate what that means to your bottom line.

Working Ahead of the Curve

Making structural or process changes proactively is less expensive since you are able to manage time, resources, and effort without impacting business mandates. Building resiliency into your manufacturing operations allows you to prepare in advance.

Take advantage of the knowledge offered by your prime contractor to prepare for future regulatory changes. With experience in regulatory compliance, the professionals at Storee will evaluate your site and determine the best solutions to meet the most challenging requirements.

With Storee Construction as your auditing team, you’ll have more than five decades of legal compliance audit checklist experience working for you. We offer site planning, design-build engineering, safety compliance with new and existing facilities, and other industry-specific audits. You can be confident your structure and operational procedures will be ready for any internal and external auditors.

Take advantage of the knowledge offered by your prime contractor to prepare for future regulatory changes. With experience in regulatory compliance, the professionals at Storee will evaluate your site and determine the best solutions to meet the most challenging requirements.

Contact Storee at 888-736-2032 for more information.