Rubber inspection seems like something trivial that you may get your mechanic to do every so often.
The fact of the matter is that rubber is a key ingredient in many organisations as a construction material, as part of machinery or even in the product being sold. 29 million tonnes of rubber is consumed around the world every year, the industry representing a multi-billion dollar sector that in some way influences all our lives. Whether your organisation needs rubber in your construction processes or whether rubber is a crucial part of your machinery setup, it is important to feel that you can carry out rubber inspection in a detailed and effective way.
Many organisations now are making use of mobile devices in a paperless inspection setup. It makes it easy to inspect on the go, with all the necessary manuals and instructions in the form of reference material in a checklist. Checklists on paperless solutions are often now designed so that if an asset of batch of rubber is failed on one inspection, it can determine what the necessary corrective actions are, or what the next steps are that need to be taken. This means that a failed piece of rubber on a tyre tread of a crane can be diagnosed, highlighted as an issue and new tyres ordered to maintenance within a couple of minutes. The lead time for assets and machinery from recognition of issues to maintenance to back out in service can be dramatically reduced. Paperless inspection isn’t just about getting new rubber tyres for cranes though; rubber inspection can mean checking the insulation of electrical circuit boards or the seal of the hull on an oil tanker. As mentioned above, rubber is so far reaching and in so many consumer and business products that thorough rubber inspection is necessary to master for many different businesses. With employees making use of features such as the mobile device camera to record fault lines in the rubber or perhaps excessive wear and tear, all personnel on site can be kept informed and safe. At the end of the day everyone wants to avoid a workplace accident due to failure of a rubber support or safety protection. It is also important to conduct rubber inspection when receiving a product as a business supply or material. This can be PPE or even rubber as a bulk item for construction; you want to be sure that you are getting quality in your items. In line with standards such as ISO/TC 45 – ‘Rubber and Rubber Products’, rubber inspection can become a simple but detailed process. This is why standardised reporting in checklists is becoming the mainstay of business inspections; it reduces the time taken to carry out rubber and other material inspections, whilst reminding you of what is important to look for. As reference material you can also attach previous inspection reports and data which makes for good comparison when making a visual inspection.
