Be careful out there19 December 2022

As the UK heads into recession, engineer surveyors need to remain vigilant. It’s not just households that will be under strain, but businesses as well. Any cutbacks may affect their maintenance and staffing levels, and how frequently they renew machinery. Engineer surveyors need to continue to make sure that equipment is fit for purpose and safe.

I started my career in engineer surveying in 1992, and I remember the strain then. People were keeping equipment longer; new investment wasn’t there. The silver lining is that the inspection industry is now growing.

Regardless of budgets, users of equipment need to continue maintenance and continue their inspection regime. And they should invest in new equipment as appropriate, although even old equipment, properly maintained and inspected, continues to be safe.

Manufacturers and maintainers sometimes assume that they know best, because engineer surveyors never get involved in maintenance. They may think, ‘engineer surveyors don’t have all of the information; how can they make a judgement?’ But engineer surveyors are still engineers. They draw on their experience, knowledge and training to identify defects based on facts and good engineering principles, for example, known rejection criteria from engineering standards. The difference between maintainers and surveyors is their purpose. Engineer surveyors identify defects; they do not fix them. They make judgements about the fitness of the equipment for future use, with the ultimate aim of keeping people safe.

To remain impartial, it is important that engineer surveyors do not get involved in maintenance. Being caught up in trying to solve a problem that they have identified or worrying about how much the issue will cost to fix, might influence their examinations, or bias their conclusions.

Now more than ever, operators of equipment need to be able to rely on the advice and actions of competent maintainers and engineer surveyors.

David Young, chair, Bureau of Engineer Surveyors

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