Good afternoon Max,

I see at this point that you are simply innundated with offers of assistance with your problem :)

Large fleets of items cause no end of problems as I'm sure you are only too acutely aware of. There are many options open to you :-

1) Train each operative to a level where they can inspect the ladder on a daily, weekly and three monthly interval, number the ladders and place them on personal issue - stagger the examination dates to give you a stock of ladders to be issued one for one when the issued ladderas are due examinationkeep one cert centrally and issue one to the operative.

2) Train several operators to a level and have them do the above (repeat with the word "one" for "several").

3) The centrally held ladders should be easier to control as above and when issued retain one cert copy and issue one with the ladder.

see also colour coding, tagging, laminating certs and affixing to ladder, etc. etc. ad nausium.:)

in summary i would suggest - TB Talk or train to inspect, issue certs with the equipment - retain one centrally and promote the practice of checking the equipment and not being concerned about returning damaged equipment. Track damaged equipment Vs operative and you will soon find trends that will highlight any issues with the use of the ladders.

Hope this helps

Yours aye DB

Hi Max

I have had some previous work with ladders and one good idea is to make up little lamintated cards and some how attach them to the ladders (maybe with cable ties) that way everytime they are swapped between people they can be checked and this card can be signed it may prove to be a little hard to obtain all the ladders and the cards would need to contain lots of signature boxes for it to be worthwhile, but it is an idea.

The other thing to do is to set-up a PPM (planned preventative maintenance) action for the ladders so that every 6 months a checksheet goes out to everyone who has signed for a ladder and they need to return that form to you signed to say they have checked the ladder.

Obviously before issuing a ladder to anyone they should receive some training and also sign a risk assessment, this risk assessment should state in the control measures that the ladder will be inspected before every use by the operative.

Hopefully this can be of some help

Hannah

The aforementioned is probably the best way of doing it. Also, you will need some sort of record control so these should be collected every qurster for filing etc (just in case a ladder gets damaged etc).

I know scafftag does a ladder checklist but never used it so cannot comment. It stays with the ladder apparently and each new user is responsible for accepting the ladder in that condition.
Ian