Greg Norris, B2W Software, Inc.
A More Effective Process for Inspecting Equipment and Generating Repair Requests Inspecting equipment may not be a favorite activity of operators, drivers, or foremen, but there are good reasons to do them and great ways to do them more effectively with a little help from technology.
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quipment inspections keep people safe. An effective process also keeps expensive assets on the job, increasing uptime, and utilization rates while minimizing the cost of repairs. Unfortunately, the process of inspecting equipment and generating repair requests often gets bogged down by paper forms and a slow, error-prone transfer of information from the field to the shop. Software applications deliver proven advantages at the two critical phases in the process, and those advantages are compounded when the applications talk to each other. Step One: Capturing Inspection Data Paper forms were once the best option for equipment inspections. They remain the norm for many contractors. Drawbacks of a paperbased process, however, begin with having the right forms available. Foremen or project managers must maintain a large library of forms to cover each piece of equipment or resort to generic forms. The former is cumbersome. The latter makes forms longer and more difficult to complete and can limit the ability to capture important data specific to each asset. An application for electronic forms and reSEPTEMBER, 2021
Software allows contractors to improve equipment safety, uptime, and repair costs by completing inspections with electronic forms and generating repair requests automatically.
porting gives contractors the ability to customize forms for any purpose, including equipment inspections, in minutes to record the exact information they want and need. The latest forms are easy to access online and easy to fill out on a mobile device, increasing the likelihood that they get completed thoroughly and on time. Features like pre-populated dropdown menus, check boxes, radio buttons, and required fields make filling out forms easier and faster and they improve the accuracy and structure of the data. Timestamps and GPS locations, electronic signatures, and photo or video attachments continued on page 64
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