Inspection
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Audit Trail

A chronological record of changes made to data, documents or systems that provides traceability and accountability.

Definition

An Audit Trail is a secure chronological record that captures the creation, modification, approval and deletion of information within a system. It records who performed an action, what was changed, when the change occurred and, where applicable, why the change was made, providing complete traceability throughout the lifecycle of the information.

Why It Matters

Audit Trails support regulatory compliance, improve governance, enable forensic investigations and provide confidence in the integrity of engineering, maintenance and operational information.

In Practice

Audit Trails are essential for regulated industries where engineering, maintenance and operational decisions must be demonstrably traceable. Modern enterprise systems typically generate Audit Trails automatically for critical transactions.

Common Misuse

An Audit Trail records the history of changes and should not be confused with version control, which manages document or software revisions.

Term Details
Synonyms:
Audit Trail; Change History; Revision History; Data Traceability
Classification:
Industrial Data & Analytics
Concept
Basic
Applications

Data Governance; Document Management; Cybersecurity; Regulatory compliance; Asset Information Management; Quality Management.

Where It's Used

Tracking revisions to engineering documents.; Recording changes to maintenance records.; Logging updates to asset master data.; Maintaining inspection history for regulatory audits.

References

ISO 9001; FDA 21 CFR Part 11

See It In VisualAIM

VisualAIM connects glossary concepts to the asset records, inspection histories, and workflows they describe.

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