What is an equipment inspection form?
An equipment inspection form documents the condition of your equipment. It provides a report of needed repairs to make sure everything is up and running.
Employees in charge of equipment maintenance must make sure everything undergoes a thorough inspection. A daily equipment inspection form is how you establish a habit of regular, standardized equipment inspections. These minimize maintenance costs and prevent accidents in the workplace.
Preventative maintenance costs significantly less than repair work, because it ensures that you catch any issues before they get worse. Daily inspections are the best way of identifying needed equipment repairs early.
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What should be included on your equipment inspection form?
Equipment inspection is crucial in every industry. An equipment inspection form can be used by firefighters, construction workers, or conference room managers, to name a few.
Exactly what to include on an equipment maintenance checklist depends on the specific equipment you use at work. Therefore, different businesses should prepare different checklists.
Catering
Catering businesses need to inspect their equipment to prevent accidents such as slips, fire, exposure to hot substances, and electrical injury. Your equipment must undergo regular inspections so you can perform preventative maintenance before these accidents occur.
Slips and exposure to hot or harmful substances are often due to leaks. Inspect your steam plant, dishwashing machines, and other equipment daily. Schedule repairs and maintenance before your equipment clogs or cracks. Specific checks to perform include:
- Are any electrical wires frayed or fraying?
- Are chemicals or flammable substances properly stored?
- Are there any delays or odd noises when your equipment is operating?
- Are there any components/screws/etc. loose on any of your machines?
Construction
A construction equipment inspection form is an indispensable tool for construction site managers, supervisors, and workers. Construction is one of the industries with the highest number of hazards present. Daily inspections ensure that the heavy equipment workers rely on regularly is in good working condition.
The most common safety risk on a construction site is falling, often from roofs, scaffolding, and ladders. So among other things, you need to inspect:
- Safety nets
- Guardrails
- Personal fall prevention gear, like harnesses
- Ladders
- Scaffolding
Agriculture
Agriculture relies on various types of equipment to keep production moving. Farm machinery malfunctions can be costly and dangerous. Inspect your equipment daily with an equipment inspection form to be sure your production process can keep moving. So, keep a daily equipment inspection form that you can refer to during inspections.
Check your equipment for any damage before using it. This includes:
- Inspecting your tractor for deflated tires, rust in belts, wheel bearings, and other moving parts
- Checking valve stems for any leakage
- Inspecting tractors for oil or hydraulic leaks
- Inspecting battery terminals
- Ensuring headlights and warning lights are working
Benefits of equipment inspection forms
Equipment inspections determine whether work equipment can be operated. They also tell you if anything needs maintenance. Especially when broken equipment might pose a heath and safety risk to your employees, thorough inspections are necessary.
Prevent costly repairs
Without an equipment inspection form, many problems can go undiscovered and escalate over time. Keeping up a regular inspection schedule helps prevent or repair damages for relatively little cost.
Using defective equipment might make issues worse or destroy the equipment, in which case repairs will be a lot more expensive. Organizing regular inspections using an equipment inspection checklist ensures you don’t miss anything.
Improve maintenance schedule
Scheduled maintenance is a necessary part of any business in order to prevent accidents or malfunctions. Decide how often you’ll perform equipment maintenance is done by conducting risk assessments.
Data collected during daily equipment inspections help you develop preventative maintenance schedules. This information lets you know when your equipment is likely to break down. Then, you can schedule cost-effective maintenance in time.
Better equipment handling
Daily equipment inspections encourage operators to take better care of the equipment they use. Regularly documenting equipment condition incentivizes your operators to be more careful with and take responsibility for equipment.
Equipment inspection forms also increases accountability; having a record of equipment status and of who uses which equipment makes tracing much easier. Knowing that they’re accountable for the way equipment is treated incentivizes proper care, for example in the form of daily pre-use inspections.
Prepare equipment inspection forms with workflow automation software
Paper-based equipment inspection forms are messy, tedious, and easy to lose. They’re also time-consuming to analyze. That’s why using workflow automation software like Lumiform to create and manage equipment inspection checklists is much more convenient.
With flexible desktop software and a mobile app, you can use Lumiform to carry out inspections no matter what, online and offline. Simply create an inspection form with the custom form builder or download an existing one. Managing your inspection schedule with Lumiform also:
- Lets you date and timestamp every maintenance inspection for easy record-keeping
- Stores all your equipment information in the cloud, so you can access it anytime
- Helps you improve the inspection process by including pictures of equipment for added context
- Provides regular analytics reports that you can use to visualise equipment and maintenance patterns in your business
- Helps you present maintenance records during audits and certifications
