SiteIt's Friday, 3pm. The office is emptying out. The line runs through the weekend because the orders don't stop for a bank holiday. You've got one fitter on call from tonight till Tuesday morning.
At 11pm on Saturday the main conveyor drive trips and won't reset. The fitter gets there in 40 minutes and finds a burnt-out gearbox motor. There's no spare on the shelf. The supplier's counter shuts till Tuesday. The fitter has been up since 6am.
A normal weekend breakdown is hard. A bank holiday makes it longer. Monday the 31st is the summer bank holiday in England and Wales* (GOV.UK). That's three days in a row where the people and parts you lean on in the week are harder to reach.
Most long-weekend breakdowns get worse because nobody planned for the third day.
Friday afternoon is your last easy chance
Everything is easier before the office shuts. So use the last few hours of Friday.
Walk your worst machines with the shift fitter. Look for the jobs that have been "fine for now" all week. A bearing that's started to rumble. A chain that's been tensioned twice this month. A drive that trips once a shift and gets reset. Any one of those can wait till Tuesday on a normal week. Over a long weekend, fix it or at least plan for it.
Then check the spares for those same machines. Not the whole stores cage, just the parts that would stop a line. Motors, drives, belts, sensors, the odd fuse that nobody stocks. If it isn't on the shelf, ask if you can get one delivered before the weekend. Our post on critical spares covers how to choose.
Last, check the boring stuff. Can the on-call fitter get the keys to the stores? Is there a PLC backup on a laptop on site? Are the drawings in the panel? At 11pm on Saturday, a locked stores cage can cost you an hour on its own.
One fitter for three days isn't cover
Here's the trap. You put one person on call for the whole weekend and call it covered.
That person will get the Saturday night call. They might get Sunday afternoon too. By Monday they've had two broken nights and they're driving in tired.
The law sets a floor. An adult worker is entitled to at least 11 consecutive hours'* rest in each 24-hour period (Working Time Regulations 1998, regulation 10). There are exceptions in the rules, so check how they apply to your contracts. But the safety point stands either way. HSE says fatigue leads to "slower reactions, reduced ability to process information, memory lapses" and an "underestimation of risk" (HSE, fatigue). That's the last thing you want in someone isolating a machine at 3am. Our piece on fatigue and long shifts goes further.
So split it. Two people on a rota is better than one person on for three days. If you can't find two from your own team, line up an outside engineer as the second name before Friday. Our post on on-call rotas that people will actually do has some ways to make that fair.
Know who you'll ring for what
The on-call fitter is a fitter. If the fault is in a PLC or a servo drive, they may not be the right person, and they'll know it.
So before Friday, write down who to ring for each kind of fault:
- mechanical faults: your on-call fitter
- electrical and controls faults: a named sparky or controls engineer, in house or outside
- the chiller, compressor or boiler: the service firm's out-of-hours number
- a machine still under warranty: the maker's helpline
Ring the out-of-hours numbers on Friday. Some firms run a reduced service over bank holidays. Some numbers go to voicemail. Better to find out at 2pm on Friday than at 2am on Sunday.
Think about the cost of getting this wrong. If the wrong person turns up on Saturday night, you may not get the right one till Tuesday. On a weekday a wrong call costs you a shift. Over a bank holiday it could cost you most of three days.
Nobody alone in a live panel
Weekend shifts are thin. That means your on-call fitter may be the only engineer on site.
HSE lists work that needs at least one other person*, and work "near exposed live electricity conductors" is on that list (HSE, lone working). So if the fault needs live testing, someone else has to be there. Agree who before the weekend starts. A shift manager standing by is fine for some jobs. For live fault-finding you want a second competent person.
Plan for when there's no part
Sometimes you do everything right and the part still isn't there. You'll need to decide what to do until Tuesday.
Can the line run slower on a different route? Can another line pick up the work? Is there a safe temporary fix that buys two days? If you go for a temporary fix, write it down, tag it, and book the proper repair for Tuesday. Temporary fixes that nobody records have a habit of staying. We've written about what to do when the part you need isn't on the shelf.
Our view is simple. Decide on Friday which lines you'd let stop and which you'd fight for. Tell the shift managers. At 11pm on Saturday, they shouldn't be making that call alone.
What to do on Monday
If it's Friday already, do these this afternoon. If not, do them the week before the next long weekend.
- Walk your three worst machines with the shift fitter on Friday morning, and fix or plan for anything that's been "fine for now".
- Check the spares, the stores keys, the PLC backups and the drawings for those machines.
- Put two names on the on-call rota, and ring every out-of-hours number to check it answers.
- Agree which lines can stop until Tuesday, and tell the shift managers in writing.
* Bank holiday date, daily rest period and HSE's lone working list correct as of 28 August 2026. Check GOV.UK bank holidays, the Working Time Regulations and HSE's lone working guidance for the latest.