The Benefits of Equipment Management in QHSE
Managing equipment across multiple locations, plants, or buildings can be challenging, but there are ways to simplify the process. There are different kinds of equipment like heavy equipment, tools, trucks, and cars. Quality management and safety management are greatly improved when there is organized equipment management within a business. The quality standards and continuous improvement culture within the organization will rise. A QHSE management system with equipment management capabilities will give your organization this big advantage.
Understand Equipment Life Cycle Management Better
Part of managing your equipment involves knowing precisely what equipment and tools you have. It’s also key to know when these assets require routine maintenance and when they need replacing. Essentially, an asset has a life cycle that can be split into four key areas:
- Planning
- Procurement/Acquisition
- Operation and Maintenance
- Disposal
Making sure businesses can plan ahead and invest in the right equipment when they need it is vital.
Make Your Equipment Visible
Many large organizations will usually have hundreds, or even thousands, of equipment. An equipment or asset register can be useful for keeping track of things like inventory and equipment.
A QHSE management platform provides the tools needed to create an equipment or asset register. It enables businesses to gather all kinds of data about their equipment in one central location. The platform also provides a real-time view of where equipment is located at any given time. At the same time, it can help businesses to eliminate ghost assets, which may be costing them in insurance and tax fees.
Equipment management tools can even support purchase order requisitions and logistics. This means you can deploy equipment to the right site whenever it’s needed. A robust system will be able to handle multiple users at once. This means that the in-house project manager can create requests to collect equipment when it’s not needed, or log issues when tools or machinery need repair. It also gives the quality manager the ability to create corrective actions when needed.
Make Equipment Maintenance Schedules Easy to Manage
To be profitable, companies need to ensure that all essential items such as machinery and tools are working effectively. For example, a backhoe loader is an expensive piece of equipment. If it is out of action, it might cause significant delays and increase costs to the project.
Using a QHSE management platform equipped with an equipment management module allows managers to plan for preventative maintenance. The manager gets automatic alerts when a tool or equipment is needed for inspection. When the task is not done, reminder emails will be sent until the task is done. This reduces the risk that you need to make an unplanned repair.
A maintenance plan allows you to assign tasks to multiple technicians. If this is planned well, there is no overdue maintenance and there will be mostly preventive maintenance. Each technician will be able to create notes about the tasks they complete and log them into a dashboard.
Make Safety a Priority for Your Construction Workers
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) claims that every year, construction site workers are killed or injured as a result of their work. According to the HSE, mobile plant and electrical accidents account for a large number of accidental deaths and injuries.
If equipment isn’t working properly, it could present significant safety hazards to construction employees. Businesses can prevent workplace accidents by effectively managing and maintaining their plant and machinery equipment. They can also remove any equipment from service once they reach their end-life.