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Lifting Inspections Go Digital

Businesses and organisations in several different fields undertake lifting inspections.

Whatever the size or shape of a business, it may be required to conduct lifting inspections if it operates any form of sling, crane, or hoist equipment. If an organisation operates within the construction, manufacturing, or mining, oil and gas industries; lifting inspections are likely already an important part of its organisational inspections and compliance.

Today, more and more businesses are taking their lifting inspections paperless, choosing to go digital with all their organisational checks. Whether that is inspecting the crane on a building site or giving a sling a pre-use check; lifting inspections can be of paramount importance to its activities.

Inspectors and businesses alike are today choosing mobile devices as their tool for conducting any form of inspection on or off site. By pairing the mobile device with an inspection checklist, the inspector can be sure to capture all data necessary, as efficiently and to as much detail as is possible within current inspection solutions today.

Perhaps the biggest draw for taking business inspections digital in general are the improvements in the inspection process for the user. Replacing the pen and paper inspection checklist gives the opportunity to bring new functionalities of the mobile device into the inspection setup.

Andy Walker from Walker Certification has recognised the benefit of going paperless for his inspections.

“When I first started, I used to go out to site with a book that looked like a reflex pack of paper with 500 pages, not photos, no pictures and the reports were pretty average, going paperless has not only been cost effective it has saved time for me and the client,” Walker said.

Taking advantage of the smartphone or tablet camera can allow the inspector to take pictures of equipment, cranes, assets or scan barcodes/RFID. With the image, the user can then use the touchscreen with or without a stylus to make annotations or highlight certain parts of the image. This is incredibly useful for drawing attention to wear and tear to showcase a crack in a crane support etc.

Outside of the camera, the inspector can also use features such as speech-to-text services or standardised response checklist design to capture information fast. With all reports and inspection data being filed digitally against each lifting asset, the audit trail and business intelligence analytics become simple and straightforward processes.

The safety compliance trail for a crane or demonstrating observance of safety regulations for a hoist can become much easier to undertake if everything is stored on one platform, with inspections tailored to demonstrate compliance to specific standards.

“I said to the Pervidi staff that what would be really helpful is when I fail something, the whole section of the inspection report comes up red as a visual aid for users,” Walker said.

 

“I had been exposed to the Pervidi paperless software at another company but they hadn’t taken the trouble to speak with the guys at Pervidi to maximise the benefits and features of the paperless program,” he said.

After information has been captured on the inspection checklist and the report marked as completed, all inspection data can be transferred to the larger inspection portal for cataloguing and analysing. This means that each report and data piece get filed with the right lifting asset.

In the event of repairs being needed, maintenance teams can log in and access this information, where all the inspection reports and historical records for that particular crane are available; from start to finish, cradle to grave. As well as having this access, the inspection system can be set up in a way that trigger notifications and alerts are sent to the necessary personnel or clients on events taking place.

This could be that a crane inspection has failed, notifying the maintenance personnel of the type of fail and what lifting asset, thereby saving time in the scheduling of maintenance or ordering of replacement parts. Other alerts could be a completion of a checklist or report which would mark the process or equipment asset safe to use and work can proceed. By speeding up the data transmission, and keeping necessary staff informed, business proficiency and workplace effectiveness will dramatically increase.

For many organisations undertaking lifting inspections, it is also important to be aware and in tune of asset implementation and safety performance. Management teams want to know that their workers are both safe and keeping to the guidelines in how they operate machinery. Any lifting equipment can both be dangerous and expensive to replace if misused, which is why it is imperative that management can provide guidance and see data of how things are being used.

For digital lifting inspections, this process can largely be solved through two things: attachment of reference material and checklist structure; and analytics tracking of inspection data. Attachment of reference material is vital in ensuring that inspectors or  technicians capture inspection data within the lines of the inspection and that they understand what they are achieving. Not only is it important from a safety perspective that they understand the nature and safety of the asset that they are checking, but it can be helpful to have a copy of the industry standard (e.g. AS 2550)so that they know what the information being recorded will be used for.

Similarly, the structure of the inspection checklist allows managers and supervisors to know exactly what is being complied with and what isn’t, thanks to how you structure the inspection process. On the other hand, it is also important that all inspection data captured is stored in central locations so that Business Intelligence (BI) can be used to analyse the data. For lifting inspections, assets such as cranes or hoists can be expensive items, so their effective operations and usefulness are key to a successful operation. By allowing business intelligence to analyse the inspection data captured digitally over time, managers can be sure that the organisation and its assets are performing near optimum.

There are several benefits for organisations and businesses conducting lifting inspections when they choose to move to digital. Alongside the benefits to the inspector or technician in the form of new recording features, maintenance staff can stay more up to date in terms of asset conditions, whilst managers and other stakeholders can accurately determine performance and workplace compliance.

Andy Walker has seen the benefit of the Pervidi product and it has become an asset for his business and the clients he serves.

“I have actually stated to win work, thanks to the clear reporting of the Pervidi program, operators just love the quality of it,” Walker said.

To learn more about digital lifting inspection solutions and how they could be integrated within your business setup, visit Pervidi.com.au.

 

 

 

 

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