At many companies, the primary reason for doing equipment inspections is because they’re legally required, as is the case for commercial vehicle inspections. And since compliance is the motivation, inspections are done just well enough to comply.

Regardless of industry or company size, this is a substantial lost business opportunity.

Compliance may be the most-urgent reason to conduct equipment safety inspections, but it’s far from the only one. When done properly, safety inspections can increase profitability in several ways.

The Keys to an Effective Inspection System

What is a proper safety inspection? It’s a pre-use inspection that ensures the equipment is ready to operate from a safety and functional standpoint. This means the equipment has to be checked thoroughly. Cursory equipment inspections aren’t good enough.

To make this happen, you need a strong inspection management system, such as you can get from quality inspection checklists (perhaps used in conjunction with online inspection management software). The equipment checklists you use should be simple to use and have specific detail about the type of equipment being inspected.

There’s also the matter of mindset. Both management and the personnel doing the inspections have to buy into the idea that inspections are not just about having the paperwork for inspection compliance. They need to appreciate that inspections are valuable tools to increase safety and productivity, and that the small amount of extra effort required to do them right is well worth it.

 The Link Between Inspections and Profitability

The vast majority of equipment cost isn’t the price of the equipment—it’s operating and maintenance expense, both of which can be reduced with a solid, robust equipment inspection system.

Doing inspections the right way results in:

• Increased productivity. When equipment inspections are done right, equipment that’s not up to the task is never deployed. This saves the cost of delays waiting for replacement equipment when the deployed equipment fails. Pre-use inspections also reveal equipment problems that would result in decreased productivity, so that functional replacement equipment can be deployed if available.
• Lower maintenance cost. Equipment inspections ensure that minor equipment problems are fixed before they escalate into major problems with big costs. Safety inspections also help determine the ideal maintenance schedule for each piece of equipment. And using inspection records, maintenance managers can identify recurring problems, the first step in pinpointing and correcting their causes.
• Greater equipment longevity. The result of implementing a strong, systematic inspection process is almost invariably an increase in the care that personnel take with their equipment. Daily documented safety inspections can pinpoint when equipment has been damaged, which discourages equipment abuse. Personnel will soon realize that they “own the problem” if an inspection isn’t done and an issue is overlooked. This “ownership” mentality—besides being another factor that reduces maintenance cost—leads to equipment lasting longer, thereby reducing equipment cost.
• Better procurement decisions. Inspection records can help in evaluating product performance.
• More-accurate cost forecasting. Inspection data can help management better forecast equipment costs, thereby enabling improved equipment procurement, maintenance, and deployment schedules that increase productivity.
• Reduced injury-related costs. Beyond the moral imperative of keeping workers safe, there’s quite a significant cost imperative to reduce on-the-job injuries due to defective equipment that shouldn’t be in use. Worker’s compensation insurance and employee health insurance premiums are at risk of rising with on-the-job accidents. And workplace injuries often decrease productivity due to lost work time.
• Liability protection. It’s a given that compliance with laws and safety regulations is important, but there’s more to the legal aspect of inspections than that. If someone is injured due to faulty equipment—even if it’s an employee—your company faces the possibility of being sued for negligence, which could prove financially devastating. Think of a record of regularly conducted pre-use inspections as some insurance against this risk.

The Bottom Line

Equipment inspections shouldn’t be viewed as a burden—done only for the purpose of inspection compliance. They’re actually an opportunity to improve business performance by reducing costs, lowering risk, and increasing productivity.