The operator does it, before the machine moves, every day. Not the fitter, not the hire company, not the site manager on a Friday. The person about to sit in the cab walks round the machine, looks at what the handbook tells them to look at, tries the brakes and the alarms, and initials a sheet that says so. If something is wrong, the machine does not move until somebody competent has said it can.
The paperwork exists to prove that happened, and to catch the day it did not.
Where the duty comes from
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 put it on the employer whose people use the machine. Regulation 5 requires work equipment to be maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair. Regulation 6 requires it to be inspected where it can deteriorate into a dangerous condition, which a machine on a construction site does. Regulation 9 requires everyone who uses it to have had adequate training.
Where the machine lifts, the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 add the thorough examination under regulation 9: every six months for equipment that lifts people and for lifting accessories, every twelve months for other lifting equipment, or at the intervals a written examination scheme sets. A telehandler, a forklift, a MEWP and an excavator when it is used to lift are all lifting equipment. The examination report is the certificate the daily check sits on top of; it does not replace it, and it travels with the machine.
A van is different only in where it is: on the public road it is subject to road traffic law and must be roadworthy; inside the hoarding it is work equipment under the 1998 Regulations and gets a driver's walk-round like everything else.
What a competent operator checks
The handbook for that model, not a generic list. A dumper check is about the seat belt, the brakes on a slope and the tipping edge; a telehandler check is about the load chart for the attachment fitted and the load moment indicator self-test; a generator check is about the earth electrode and the RCD test button. None of those appears on a sheet written for "plant", which is why it is one sheet per machine type, one per machine per week: seven day columns, the operator's initials, and a defect column, because the defect is the point.
Where the sheet is kept
With the machine during the week, in the cab or on the tablet the operator carries, and initialled at the machine, not in the cabin at the end of the shift from memory. On Friday, or when the machine goes off hire, it goes to the site file behind the plant register that lists every machine on site and its examination status.
Two records sit next to it: the operator's authorisation, made once per operator per machine type when the site saw the card and put the operator in the seat with the handbook, and the defect report, one per defect, recording the tag, the keys coming out, the repair and the signed return to service. A defect column with an entry and no defect report behind it is the first thing an inspector asks about after an accident.
What a template does not do
A weekly sheet gives the operator the checks for that machine type and the duty printed on the page. It does not know the handbook for the machine in front of them, and the competent person adapting it must. Nor does a signed sheet make a machine safe or anyone compliant; the operator who stopped the machine did that. Why we will never call a document "compliant".
Documents for this work
- The plant daily checks bundle — all eight machine-specific weekly sheets and the two records behind them
- 360° Excavator — Weekly Operator Check Sheet
- Telehandler — Weekly Operator Check Sheet
- Plant Operator Authorisation and Competence Record
- Plant Defect Report and Quarantine Tag Record
- Plant Pre-Use Inspection Checklist — the generic sheet for any machine
- MEWP Pre-Use Inspection and Familiarisation Record — the MEWP sheet, with the familiarisation and rescue drill
- Lifting Accessories Pre-Use Check — the slings, shackles and chains, checked separately
- Plant on Site Register and Hire Log — the index the weekly sheets hang off