Posted By Rob sharp
Hi


Does anyone know if there is any legislation that says you must have maintenance on site in a production facility when production machines are running.

Many thanks

Posted By RBW100
I agree that there is no legal requirement (that I am aware of) to have maintenance cover when a production facility is running. However you may find that your risk assessment may require engineering cover to be available.

For example if no maintenance cover is available then production staff (or managers) may be tempted to repair equipment themselves and could injure themselves as a result of lack of training in repair.

Also if your site has a steam boiler, guidance from the HSE on steam boilers states that trained boiler operatives should be on site when a boiler is running, which is a role normally filled by maintenance staff.

Notwithstanding the above many production sites run without engineering cover due to the cost of providing it.

My advice (as an engineering manager at a production site) would be to have maintenance cover on site when running production. Out side of production time (say during cleaning shift) cover could be provided by a callout system.

RW