Equipment inspection log
Work equipment that is subject to wear must be inspected periodically by a competent person, and you must be able to demonstrate that the inspection took place. Appfront builds the log that fills in per item at the moment of inspection, with a code on the item as the entry point, so you don't have to reconstruct what was done and when during an audit.
What the inspection obligation requires of you
The Working Conditions Decree (Arbobesluit) requires employers to have work equipment that is exposed to influences that can lead to dangerous situations inspected periodically by a competent person. The law sets no general interval: it follows from the manufacturer's manual, your own risk assessment and how intensively the item is used. For electrical equipment, NEN 3140 is often used in practice as the benchmark.
This covers a broad range: tools and machinery, ladders, stepladders and mobile scaffolds, fall protection, electric hand tools, portable installations and many items that vary by sector. What they share is that proof of the inspection must be available, and that the inspection was carried out by someone demonstrably competent to do so.
During an inspection or after an accident, the question is never whether you have a system, but whether you can show, for this one item, when it was inspected, by whom, and what the result was. If you have to pull that from a spreadsheet, that's where you discover the gaps: items that were bought later and never made it onto the list, and items that have been on it for years but were disposed of long ago. A list doesn't follow reality; a code on the item does.
The same scan can soon do more than prove an inspection. Under the Ecodesign Regulation, a code on the product points to its digital product passport; see the ESPR app.
At a Seveso site, a second track is added: rounds and drills that demonstrate that the internal emergency plan is a living one. See the Seveso app.
Powered doors, gates and roller shutters require their own file per unit, with force measurements and safety features. For that, there is a separate page on software for inspecting doors, gates and roller shutters.
How we build your inspection log
We start with the inventory and the question of who inspects. Software delivered without the items being labelled is an empty system with good intentions.
Which work equipment is subject to mandatory inspection, which categories it falls into and which interval applies. That interval comes from the manual, your risk assessment and the intensity of use; we adopt it rather than invent it.
For each type of item we choose the identification method and design the inspection points per category. A ladder requires different checkpoints than a hand tool; by recording that per category, the inspector only has to assess what applies.
We work in sprints and start with scanning, inspecting and signing off. Your technical department takes part and inspects a real batch of items early on with an interim version, because that's the only way to find out whether the pace is achievable.
We plan the labelling of your existing stock as a targeted effort rather than doing it along the way. After that, we hand over, with agreements on who enters new items; that is the step where systems like this tend to fall apart in practice.
What the log actually does
Six components that together make up the log. What you need depends mainly on how many items there are and whether you inspect them yourself or have them inspected.
Scanning as the entry point
A code on the equipment opens the right inspection checklist and shows its history straight away. The inspector has nothing to look up, and the record is guaranteed to be attached to the right item, even when there are twenty identical machines.
Interval per item, not per list
Every item has its own interval, based on its type and use. The system plans ahead, groups what is at the same location and warns you in good time, so inspecting becomes a planned round rather than a backlog.
Inspection points per category
For each type of equipment, the points to be assessed, with room for a measured value where that applies. This keeps the inspection short and ensures nothing is skipped because someone did it from memory.
Rejection with consequences
A rejected item is blocked, with a reason, and stays blocked until it has been repaired and re-inspected or taken out of service. Disposal is recorded too, because otherwise the item stays in the count and, in practice, sometimes in the cupboard as well.
Inspector authorisation
Only designated people can sign off, and the system records who it was. For external inspections, the report is linked to the item, so internal and external inspections end up in the same log.
A logbook that stands up to inspection
The full history per item: date, inspector, result, findings and any repairs, exportable whenever it is requested. Changes made afterwards show up as changes.
Who we build for
Four situations where a log quickly pays for itself. The difference lies in the number of items and how far they travel from the office.
Manufacturing and industry
Many machines and tools at a single location, with an in-house technical department. If this connects to your maintenance system, inspections and preventive maintenance fall into the same round.
Construction and installation
Equipment moves with projects and vans, so a central list is inevitably out of date. If you also work with lifting equipment, that calls for its own approach; see lifting equipment inspection.
Healthcare and institutions
A lot of electrical equipment spread across departments, inspected to NEN 3140, with users who are not technicians. The app then mainly needs to make it quickly clear whether something has been inspected.
Rental and facility services
Equipment goes out of the door and comes back in varying condition. Besides inspecting, issue and return checks matter here, often together with your facility processes.
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What we use depends on your equipment and your environment. For on-site inspections, offline use weighs the heaviest; an app that does nothing in a machine hall or a basement gets skipped, and then the log is filled in afterwards from memory.
For inspection companies that inspect tools at their clients' sites, there is our inspection registration software for electrical tools.
For harnesses, lanyards and anchor points, with service life and blocking on rejection, there is our inspection register for fall protection equipment.
If you inspect emergency lighting and want to keep a log per luminaire, there is our inspection registration for emergency lighting.
If you inspect equipment that you rent out, with a return check and a block on renting it out, there is our app for inspecting rental equipment.
If it is about inspecting products against the drawing rather than work equipment, take a look at our first article inspection software with measurement report.
For scaffolding on a construction project, with inspection, release and changes per scaffold, there is our app for scaffolding registration on a project.
Why Appfront
The code follows the equipment
A list gets updated at the office while the equipment is out on site. By attaching the record to the equipment itself, the log stays accurate without anyone having to maintain it.
Rejection has to stop something
A status that blocks nothing changes nothing about reality in the toolbox. We build rejection as a block, because that is the only thing that prevents the scenario.
Alongside what already runs
Your maintenance planning, your asset register and your purchasing already know which equipment exists. We pull that in through integrations so that new equipment doesn't have to be entered in two places.
Rollout is the real work
It's not the software but the tagging of your existing stock that determines whether this succeeds. We plan that round explicitly and tell you up front what it will cost your own people.
Security and privacy
An inspection log contains little personal data, but it does record who carried out which inspection and sometimes who had a piece of equipment in use. That is traceable to an employee and touches on their competence. We use that record for what it is meant for, namely demonstrating that a competent person did the work, and we keep reporting focused on the equipment rather than the person.
After an accident, this log becomes evidence, and then reliability is what counts. Changes to a completed inspection are therefore logged and shown as changes, with who made them and when. Photos attached to findings are timestamped and cannot be silently replaced. A log that can be altered unnoticed after the fact is worthless in an investigation and can even work against you. How we handle security ourselves is set out in our information security policy; reports from outside go through our coordinated vulnerability disclosure policy.
The electrical side has its own rules: NEN 3140 requires a register, a risk-based inspection frequency and written instructions. We cover that in NEN 3140 inspection app with installation register.
Frequently asked questions about the inspection log
All work equipment that is subject to influences that can lead to dangerous situations. That is deliberately broad and covers machinery, electric hand tools, ladders and mobile scaffolds, fall protection and portable installations. Which equipment falls under it in your case follows from your risk inventory and evaluation. We take that list as our starting point; determining it is occupational health and safety work, not a software question.
The law sets no general interval. The frequency follows from the manufacturer's manual, your own risk inventory and how intensively the equipment is used. A drill in a workshop used daily calls for a different interval than the same device picked up a few times a year. That is why we set the interval per item of equipment and not per category.
Lifting and hoisting equipment each has its own certificate with a working load on it, and the registration is built around that; we cover it on that page. This log is broader and covers all work equipment subject to inspection, where periodicity and evidence are the core. If you have both, we often build one system with two flows.
A competent person. For some equipment that means a certified inspector or an external party; for much other equipment a demonstrably trained in-house employee can suffice. For electrical work equipment, NEN 3140 is often used as the standard. We record authorisation in the system so that only designated people can sign off; who that is, you decide together with your occupational health and safety adviser.
With a labelling round, which is the biggest piece of work in the rollout. We import what is in your asset register or spreadsheet, and your people then walk past the equipment to label and check it. In our experience that round always turns up discrepancies: equipment that was not on the list, and list entries for equipment that has been gone for years. Better to find that out now than during an inspection.
Yes. Machine halls, basements and building sites have poor coverage, and that is exactly where the equipment is. The app stores data locally and synchronises as soon as there is a connection, with a clear view of which inspections are still open. We explicitly design for what happens when two people have assessed the same item offline, because that is where apps like this tend to go wrong in practice.
Yes, and we recommend it. If you have part of your equipment inspected externally, you don't want two logbooks. We link the external report to the item, with the date and the inspecting party, so the history is complete. If your inspection company supplies structured data, this can be done automatically; otherwise it is an upload with a few fields.
That depends on the number of items, the number of categories and the integrations you want. Scanning and inspecting is usually usable quickly. The labelling round takes the most lead time, and that is work for your own people. We give a well-founded estimate after the discovery phase, not before, because the number of categories matters more than the number of items.
Ready to build an inspection logbook?
Tell us how many items and categories are involved and how the logbook is currently kept, and we will help you think through identification, deadlines and the labelling round. We build this as a standalone application and as part of a broader project involving custom software or an app. If you also want to know who is on site, see attendance registration.