Dashpivot article page – OSHA Heavy Equipment Inspection Requirements
OSHA Heavy Equipment Inspection Requirements
What are your OSHA heavy equipment inspection compliance requirements?
Your specific OSHA heavy equipment inspection compliance requirements may vary depending on the type of heavy equipment you're using and the industry you're in.
However, there are some general guidelines and requirements to consider. Here are a few key compliance requirements for OSHA heavy equipment inspections:
- Frequency of inspections: depending on the equipment type, you may require inspections on either a daily, monthly or annual frequency. You should refer to OSHA to look up specific guidelines depending on what assets you have.
- Documentation: again, depending on the asset, you may require documentation or not.
- Type of inspections: different heavy equipment have different inspection needs. Initial inspections, functional inspections and periodic inspections are all run at different times and have different requirements and documentation needed.
Frequency can depend on how often the heavy equipment is used, but best practice often dictates it's good to have some variation of a daily inspection whenever equipment is being used.
How can you meet OSHA requirements for heavy equipment inspections?
Not meeting OSHA requirements for heavy equipment inspections can be dangerous to your worker safety, while also opening you up to costly litigation.
There are some steps you can follow to help ensure you're maintaining your OSHA compliance for heavy equipment inspections:
- Documented inspection processes: Ensure you have a written record of your inspection processes that states your frequency for heavy equipment inspections and what the procedure is for each specific asset.
- Regular inspections: Your assets have specific frequency of regular inspection needs as set out by your workflow, so ensure they're carried out and recorded.
- Other inspections: There is more to your inspection compliance needs than just regular inspections. Refer to your documented inspection process to plan pre-start inspections and periodic inspections to assess heavy equipments overall condition.
- Qualified inspectors: Qualified individuals need to sign off on heavy equipment inspections, so ensure you have responsibilities assigned in your inspection workflows as to who can record inspections.
- Reporting: Maintain a bulletproof audit trail of heavy equipment inspections, signoff and corrective actions associated with your inspections so you can prove your compliance in case of an audit.
What does an OSHA-compliant Heavy Equipment Inspection Checklist look like?
An OSHA-compliant heavy equipment inspection checklist has a few standardised sections to ensure your inspections are compliant and work can be conducted safely:
- Inspector: who is inspecting the equipment - extremely important as the inspector needs to be qualified to inspect the specific heavy equipment for compliance and overall inspection quality.
- Date and time: frequency reporting is very important, so you have to have the specific date and time on the inspection checklist to ensure you ran the report on the necessary day.
- Equipment: what heavy equipment is being inspected - it can be useful to break this down by equipment type, to help with understanding the frequency needs and for inspection performance review by equipment type.
- Checklist items: the core of the document, the checklist items with the result of their inspection, if they passed or failed/needs repair.
- Corrective actions: if maintenance was performed or if more corrective actions were needed before the heavy equipment passed the inspection.
- Signoff: a critical part of any heavy equipment inspection is the signoff approval that it's safe to work, or unsafe and needs corrective action.
Below is an example of heavy equipment inspection checklist.
Use the free heavy equipment inspection checklist template to meet OSHA needs
Why is a digital heavy equipment inspection checklist template useful?
A standardised digital heavy equipment inspection checklist template makes it easier to distribute your template to your team so it's quick and easy to create inspection checklists.
Include all the sections you require to be compliant, while also making it easy to add checklist items specific to the equipment they're inspecting.
Add digital or manual signoff to ensure you're meeting compliance needs.
How can a heavy equipment inspection checklist app can help?
You can go beyond an inspection checklist to integrate your digital forms into a heavy equipment inspection checklist app.
Distribute your created OSHA heavy equipment inspection checklists to your team in the field so they can access them on site via their mobile phones or tablets right in front of the equipment they're inspecting.
Print out QR code posters for the specific asset and put them on the equipment so inspectors are taken right to the relevant inspection template for that asset.
Automated workflows ensure that inspection checklists are run on schedule and have signoff approval before being marked as complete.
Timeline and register views give you an overview of inspections carried out to eliminate double handling and ensure you're meeting your OSHA compliance needs.
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