Your guide to entering and analysing fleet in Plant Assessor

We get many requests from clients for us to show them what is involved in setting up and managing a risk assessment plan using Plant Assessor. Machinery safety is only one aspect of business that our clients need to manage. In the daily grind, it can be pushed down the priority list as other more “urgent” issues arise, however urgency generally does not equate to importance!

In order to help keep machinery safety on the priority list, we have built a range of functions into Plant Assessor to quickly and simply help our clients create and execute thorough risk assessment plans. You can use Plant Assessor to set up, monitor and manage such a plan.

How long does it take to set up a risk assessment plan using Plant Assessor?

A risk assessment plan for a plant fleet of 50 items can be set up in a couple of hours. After that couple of hours, you will have a fully scheduled assessment plan, with automatic reminders, email reporting and progress dashboards.

What's involved in setting up and managing a risk assessment plan?

We regularly help Plant Assessor clients walk through the stepped process set out below:

1. Fleet Entry: Entering into Plant Assessor all fleet items of the types that are to be assessed under the plan

2. Fleet Analysis:

   a. Reviewing the makeup of the fleet and understanding its risk profile

   b. Deciding what equipment types should be included in the risk assessment plan

3. Deciding initial assessment dates based on risk

4. Reviewing and adjusting re-assessment periods based on risk

5. Assigning fleet items to assessors

6. Monitoring and review:

   a. The assessments dashboard

   b. The scheduling dashboard

   c. Weekly and monthly email reports (push notifications)

7. Periodic review of fleet and the plan

In this guide, we’ll focus on step 1 and 2.

Entering fleet into Plant Assessor

In order to use Plant Assessor’s risk rating and scheduling functionality, we need to start by entering the plant and equipment fleet into Plant Assessor.

Should I put every item in my fleet list into Plant Assessor; even small plant?

Many Plant Assessor clients enter their small plant items to Plant Assessor, not necessarily to conduct a full risk assessment on them, but to use Plant Assessor's digital pre-start checks on these items. Each client’s situation is different, but for many clients, it is not reasonably practicable to conduct full risk assessments on small plant, and therefore pre-start checks act as a surrogate for a risk assessment.

When setting up an initial risk assessment plan, we suggest that clients focus on what they consider to be higher risk items in their fleet. We often assist clients make this judgement during this process.

Once you have decided what you want to add to Plant Assessor, add fleet items in the home screen using the + ADD MACHINE button (LHS, green). Alternatively, Plant Assessor can assist in getting your fleet in as well, please contact us to find out how.

Fleet analysis

In analysing the fleet, we really want to focus on the overall and relative risk of the fleet categories and items in the list, which will set us up to decide on initial assessment dates and consider the issue of reassessment periods. Plant Assessor’s assessment scheduling function includes pre-determined machine risk ratings for every make and model of equipment in the system. These risk ratings are fully adjustable and tailorable to each client’s circumstances and risk appetite.

Once scheduling is switched on, in order to review and manipulate fleet and machine risk ratings, we simply export the fleet out of Plant Assessor and into a spreadsheet.