What to have ready before the callout engineer arrives

The callout engineer pulls up at the gate at 3.10am. Security weren't told anyone was coming. The shift manager is on the floor and not answering the radio. Twenty minutes later someone walks down to let them in.

Then the questions start. Where's the isolator? Who has the locks? Is there a manual? Has anyone got the drive parameters? The fitter who knows the machine is on holiday, and the manual is in a filing cabinet in an office that's locked.

By the time the engineer touches the machine, they've been on site an hour. You're paying for every minute of it, and the line has been stood the whole time.

A callout engineer is only as quick as the site lets them be. Most of the delay in the first hour is yours, and most of it can be fixed before the night it happens.

Get them through the gate

This sounds too simple to write down. It's also the most common hold-up we hear about.

• Tell security the moment you book the engineer: name, company, van, rough arrival time.
• Name one person who meets them at the gate and stays with them until they're at the machine.
• Know where they park, and where they can bring a van close if they need heavy kit.
• Have a visitor pass and a radio or a phone number ready.

If your site needs a full induction video before anyone goes past reception, have a short breakdown version. A long video at 3am helps nobody. The rules still need to land, though, so make the short version cover the real risks.

Tell them what can hurt them

You have a legal duty here, and it starts before they pick up a tool. Under the Management Regulations, you must give the employer of any outside worker on your site "comprehensible information" on the risks from your work, and on what you do to control them (regulation 12). For a self-employed engineer, the same duty applies to them directly. They also need enough information to know who runs the evacuation if the alarm goes (regulation 12).

HSE's guide to using contractors is clear. Contractors need the risks they may face, the measures in place, and "your emergency procedures" (INDG368). It also warns: "don't assume that contractors will be aware of all risks, even if they seem obvious to you."

On a factory floor at night, that means telling them about:

• forklifts and pedestrian routes, and where trucks run on nights
• any machine near theirs that could start on its own
• chemicals, hot surfaces, steam or compressed air near the job
• the permit system, and whether this job needs one
• hot work rules, if they might need to cut or weld
• PPE: what's needed in that area, and whether you have spares

HSE's maintenance guidance flags the risk of contractors "who are unfamiliar with the site" (HSE, maintenance). A callout engineer at 3am is about as unfamiliar as it gets. Our post on what you owe contractors before they start covers the full duty.

Put the machine's paperwork in one place

This is the part that turns a two-hour job into a six-hour one. Have it waiting at the machine, or in one folder you can grab:

• make, model and serial number, from the plate
• the manual, and the electrical and pneumatic drawings
• the PLC program backup and the drive parameter list, if you have them
• the last few entries from the maintenance log for that machine
• the fault report from tonight, with the HMI photos

If you don't know where half of that is, find out on a quiet afternoon. Our post on machine documentation has a list of what to keep and where. If the PLC has lost its program and nobody has a backup, the engineer can't magic one up. See the backups you'll wish you had.

If the machine is hired, check the hire agreement before you call anyone. HSE's code of practice says the hire company and the hirer should agree in writing who carries out safety-related maintenance (L22, paragraph 77). It may be their job, not yours.

Make it safe to start work

Have the machine stopped and the area clear when they arrive. Don't take guards off ahead of them unless they've asked you to. Leave the fault as it is, so they can see it.

Then be ready to answer three questions straight away:

1. Where are the isolation points, for power, air and anything hydraulic?
2. Whose locks are on it now, and who can take them off?
3. Is anything still holding energy, like a raised table, a charged accumulator or a loaded spring?

The engineer will fit their own lock. If your fitter is also working on it, they each have their own. Nobody should be working under someone else's lock.

Decide who can say yes

Here's the one that catches sites out. The engineer finds a failed drive at 4am. The supplier can have a new one on site by ten, if someone orders it now. Who approves it?

If the answer is "the engineering manager, when they wake up", the line stays down until they do. So decide in advance who on each shift can approve parts, and up to what amount. Write it down. Give that person the phone numbers of your main suppliers.

Do the same for the restart. Name the person on each shift who signs off the machine to go back into production. We've written separately on who signs off the restart.

Have the right person to call

All of this assumes you've got someone to call. Most sites only find out they haven't at 2am. If your own fitter is off, the machine's maker is in Germany, and the local firm doesn't do nights, the best-prepared site in the country still waits.

So line up your callout cover before you need it, and check they cover the kit you've got. A great mechanical fitter is no use on a servo fault. The two-minute gate brief is a good place to start once you've got them.

What to do on Monday

1. Write a one-page "callout ready" sheet: gate, who meets them, parking, short induction, emergency procedures.
2. Build a folder for each of your five worst machines: plate details, manual, drawings, backups.
3. Agree who on each shift can approve parts, and how much they can spend.
4. Check who you'd call tonight for each of those five machines, and whether they'd come.

* Paragraph numbers refer to L22, fourth edition (2014, amended 2018).