We recently had a torque wrech fail when one of our personnel was tightening a bolt on a large piece of equipment. He wasn't hurt while carrying this out but the client has asked what kind of inspection and maintenance regime we have in place for all of our handheld tools. As it stands, we currently carry out visual inspections on handtools about once a year but this is not documented. The client giving us some heat due to this and are insisting that we have all our inspections documented to show evidence that it has been done. That is fair enough but the problem is that we have thousands of handtools (everything from screwdrivers to angle grinders) and to document everything is a huge task in itself. My question is, what level of recording is required for handtools such as screwdrivers, spanners hammers etc? Is a simple tick box saying pass or fail acceptable?

Can the "inspection" of hand held tools be documented within your current processes? Do your operatives complete pre-task risk assessment form of any kind? If so, you could add a tick box that asks the operative to confirm all tools to be used have been visually assessed as good condition / acceptable for use etc? I would suggest a register of the many thousand hand held tools you have is swaying a little way away from reasonably practicable.

Forgot to say, in my previous post 'My question is, what level of recording is required for handtools such as screwdrivers, spanners hammers etc? Is a simple tick box saying pass or fail acceptable?' If you did this, you would have to individually identify each tool - otherwise how would you know if somebody had simply swaped a broken tool for a new one? You should have tool checks at the end of a job i.e. 8 spanners and 2 screw drivers taken to the job, 8 spanners and 2 screw drivers return from the job. i.e. nothing left inside the machine/aircraft etc that could cause an obstruction to control runs etc. A central tool stores could be used - with individual tags/ numbers assigned to individual engineers and to the work location/aircraft tail number - to track where tools are used. But this is more about control of tools from getting lost, rather than controlling defects to a particular tool. OTT to RECORD individual tool checks for serviceability, in my view.

We do record in risk assessments that tools must be visually checked prior to use but. The problem with the torque wrench is that it is not used very often and potentially could have deteriorated but with no obvious signs. After the failure the internals of the wrench were not great visually. Slightly rusty and never been lubricated. Unfortunately the client are very demanding but when we asked them how they document their inspections on similar types of equipment, it turns out that they don't do it at all!!! Visual checks only. It certainly wouldn't be practicable to do as they suggest and i agree with the other post that this is OTT. Looks like i'll have to have it out with them and hopefully come to a satisfactory conclusion.

Unrecorded!