PUWER, the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, is the UK legal framework requiring that work equipment be suitable, safe, maintained, inspected, and used only by trained people. It reaches almost every machine on a manufacturing floor, and its maintenance and inspection duties turn what many plants treat as good practice into a legal obligation with an evidence trail. This article is an educational overview, not legal advice; your duty holder and safety adviser own the compliance judgment.
PUWER makes maintenance a duty, not a virtue: if a machine’s guard interlock fails and there was no maintenance regime to catch it, the gap is not just an incident, it is a regulatory failing. The inspection requirement adds a second layer for equipment whose safety degrades over time, and both demand the same thing an auditor or inspector asks for after an incident: records. Show me the maintenance schedule, the inspections, the defects found, and what you did about them.
An HSE-style inspection follows a minor injury at a guillotine. The investigator asks for the machine’s PUWER evidence: is it suitable, maintained, inspected, guarded? A plant with a maintenance system produces it in minutes, the preventive schedule, the interlock function tests with dates and results, the guard-defect work order raised three weeks earlier and closed in two days, the operator training records. The finding is contained: a system was in place and working. The plant without that evidence faces the harder version of the conversation, where the absence of records is itself the failing, regardless of how well the machine was actually maintained. Under PUWER, undocumented maintenance is, for practical purposes, no maintenance.
PUWER covers work equipment broadly; lifting equipment gets its own stricter regime under LOLER (thorough examinations of cranes, slings, and hoists). Pressure systems, explosive atmospheres, and other hazards have their own regulations layered on top. The common thread across all of them is the maintainer’s reality: scheduled work, competent inspection, and a defensible record, whatever the specific regulation calls it.
Fabrico does not make you PUWER-compliant, your safety management and competent people do that. What Fabrico provides is the evidence layer the regulation effectively demands: every covered machine as an asset with maintenance and inspection schedules, function tests and defects recorded against it, the finding-to-fix chain closed and dated, and the whole history exportable when an inspector asks. Being EU-built with EU data residency, that compliance record stays under European governance. Fabrico turns "we maintain our equipment" from a claim into a document. EU-built, with EU data residency.
No. PUWER requires equipment to be maintained in efficient working order and good repair, and inspected at suitable intervals where safety depends on it, but it leaves the frequencies to a risk-based judgment informed by manufacturer guidance, usage, and criticality. The duty is to have a defensible, documented regime, not to hit a fixed number.
Maintenance keeps equipment working and safe; inspection is a check, by a competent person, that it remains safe, especially where deterioration or installation conditions matter. Both are required where relevant, and both need records. Inspection does not replace maintenance or vice versa.
Someone with the knowledge, experience, and training to detect defects and judge their significance for that equipment. Competence must be demonstrable and matched to the equipment; it can be in-house or external depending on complexity and your arrangements.
Want PUWER maintenance, inspections, and evidence on one auditable system? Book a Fabrico demo to see work-equipment compliance run through a field-ready CMMS.
Zakažite sastanak KSNUMKS-to-KSNUMKS sa našim stručnjacima ili se direktno upišite u naš besplatni plan.
Nije potrebna kreditna kartica!
Login
Blog