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Is your lifting equipment regularly inspected? Who is carrying out thorough examinations? IPAF technical officer Gil Male discusses second-party inspections and the need for impartiality.
For many years, authorised secondparty competent persons have carried out thorough examinations on mobile elevating work platforms (MEWPs) and mast-climbing work platforms (MCWPs).
Second parties are known as such because they are part of organisations that may be involved in the design, manufacture, supply, installation, use or maintenance of MEWPs or MCWPs and they may supply inspection services (i.e. thorough examination) to their own parent organisation or to other parties.
Under International Standard EN ISO/IEC 17020 General Criteria for the Operation of Various Types of Bodies Performing Inspection, they can be referred to as either Group B or Group C bodies.
Technical characteristics
These second parties are often maintenance or service engineers involved in the maintenance of MEWPs or MCWPs and who are familiar with the technical characteristics of the MEWPs and MCWPs they work on, along with failure and fault modes that can occur in use.
Employing competent persons who are second-party maintenance or service engineers often provides users with detailed information on the condition of the MEWP or MCWP in addition to the information provided in the report of thorough examination. Additionally, users can schedule thorough examination and maintenance tasks to be carried concurrently (but by different people). This approach has benefits for owners, hirers and because the information provided such second parties can give an indicator of the quality of maintenance being carried out and the time that MEWPs and MCWPs need to be taken out of service is minimised.