Custom app for inspecting doors, gates and roller shutters
An inspection is not paperwork but an action. Someone stands at the gate, lets it run, presses against a safety bar, interrupts a photocell and establishes whether the thing does what it should. What is observed there and not recorded at once comes back as handwriting on a work order.
What is established at the door
The Dutch Arbobesluit is shorter on this subject than most people think. Article 7.2a defines an inspection as an examination or test, and Article 7.4a sets out when it must happen: after installation and before first use, after each assembly at a new location or position, as often as necessary to ensure it remains in good condition, and every time after an exceptional event. The inspector must be competent, and the supporting documents must be kept at the workplace and shown to the inspector on request.
Safety devices are what matter most with a powered door. Article 7.7 requires that screens and protective devices are sturdy and cannot easily be bypassed or disabled. Article 11 of the Working Conditions Act sets out the other side: an employee may not alter or remove fitted safety devices without need, and must report any hazard noticed straight away. A bridged photocell is therefore a finding.
The third point concerns isolation. Under Article 7.5, maintenance, repair and cleaning are only carried out once the work equipment has been switched off and made depressurised or de-energised; where that is not possible, effective measures are required. A door you take out of service remains work equipment: the rule only falls away once something has been dismantled or demolished to the point that it cannot readily be put back into use.
How we build this
The engineer has one hand free and is standing in a draught. What he enters must be shorter than what he sees, and the app must know which door he is standing in front of.
A code on the unit opens the correct inspection. Searching by descriptions such as 'back gate left' returns the wrong one among ten similar doors.
Drive unit, safety edges, photocells and manual operation in a fixed order. A checklist that changes order from one brand to another gets only half completed.
What is wrong, how serious it is and what happens next. A note without consequence stays where it is until someone trips over it.
Who took the door out of service, why, and who released it again. These are two actions at two moments.
What the app does in practice
The inspection at the unit carries the whole picture. The rest depends on the number of door types and whether you work for your own premises or for clients.
The door opens its own inspection
Scanning at the door loads the right type and any findings from the last visit that are still open.
Run through the safety devices
Safety edge, photocell, emergency release and manual operation, with an outcome for each point and the measured value recorded where you capture it.
Finding with a photo taken on site
A torn safety edge, a loose guide rail, a photocell that is slightly out of line. A photo with a timestamp makes it a matter for discussion rather than dispute.
Take out of service and release
The door is given a visible status that stays in place until someone with the right role releases it, linked to your maintenance software.
The evidence remains available on site
Once completed, the inspection stays with the unit and can be consulted by anyone working at that workplace. Digital is fine, provided it is available whenever it is asked for.
Working in a dock without coverage
Loading docks, basements and plant rooms have no signal. Everything is recorded locally and synchronised later, with the original timestamp.
Who we build for
Whoever holds the app decides what carries weight. Four situations.
Door and roller shutter service companies
Your engineers inspect at dozens of addresses and produce the evidence on which your client is held to account. The file itself lives in the roller shutter software, with a portal for the client.
Technical services in production
You inspect your own high-speed doors and keep the line running. That is precisely when it pays to keep fault repair and formal inspection separate.
Distribution centres and loading docks
Doors that move all day and are regularly hit by traffic. Such a collision is an incident involving the work equipment, and therefore a reason to inspect again.
Shops and public buildings
Sliding and revolving doors in walkways where the public is looking at their phone. What matters here is whether every unit has demonstrably been checked, including the door at the side entrance. See also the inspection app.
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Inspection points differ per door type and per protocol, and standards get replaced. Everything relating to points, outcomes and failure rules should be configurable.
Why Appfront
An inspection is an action
The law calls it an examination or a test. We record the outcome per point while the technician is standing at the door.
Images belong to the finding
We attach a photo with time to the point it concerns. Free text gets you nowhere when there is a dispute about the condition of a door.
Out of use is a status
We turn it into a status of the unit, with a reason, a person and a release. A switched-off door remains work equipment.
We don't inspect your doors
Who may inspect and according to which protocol is determined by you together with your expert. We build the recording around that.
Security and privacy
An inspection app knows which access to which premises no longer closes properly, and that information travels on the phone of someone who is out all day. We set access by role and by location, give a technician only the doors they work on, and ensure a lost device doesn't hand over a file.
In addition, this topic stands or falls with the durability of the observation itself. If an outcome is still being altered after an incident, the whole file loses its value as evidence. We record inspections, findings and status changes irreversibly, with time, location and person, even when synchronisation happens later, and any correction appears as a visible correction alongside the original value. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside come through our CVD policy.
Frequently asked questions about inspecting doors on site
The Dutch Working Conditions Decree defines it briefly as an examination or a test. Looking alone is therefore not always enough. Whether a safety edge or photocell does what it should only becomes clear once you put it into operation.
After installation and before first use, and again after every assembly at a new location or a new position. Thereafter as often as necessary to safeguard good condition, and each time after an exceptional event: natural phenomena, changes to the work equipment, incidents involving it, and prolonged periods out of use.
Taking out of use is often precisely the safe choice, but it does not end your obligations. The chapter on work equipment only falls away once something has been dismantled or demolished to the extent that it cannot easily be put back into use. A door that is switched off therefore stays in your file and requires a documented release.
Maintenance, repair and cleaning are only carried out when the work equipment is switched off and depressurised or de-energised; where that is not possible, effective measures are required. There should be clearly identifiable means to disconnect the door from its energy sources, and anyone working on it must have specific expertise and experience.
Record it as a finding. Safety devices must not be easily ignored or rendered inoperative, and an employee may not alter them or remove them without necessity. Anyone who finds a bypass has also noticed a hazard that they should report immediately.
Yes. The proof documents for the inspections carried out are kept at the workplace and shown to the inspector on request; according to the Arboportaal, this may be either digital or printed. The requirement is therefore not the format but that the documents can be found on site.
The roller shutter software is the file: every unit with its handover documents, its deadlines and its history. This app is the inspection itself and produces the entries that make up that history. If you are looking more broadly at work equipment, see the inspection log or lifting and hoisting equipment.
That depends on the number of door types and whether it integrates with a work order system or an existing door record. The inspection round with findings is usually quick to put to use; integrations and a portal cost more. We give a substantiated estimate after the discovery phase.
Can your engineer show the previous inspection?
Call someone who is standing at a gate today and ask for the previous inspection of that one door, with the findings that stayed open. If they have to go back to the office for that, every inspection starts without the memory of the last one. We build this as a standalone app and as part of a broader app development project.