Branded crane inspection software is at heart of firm’s customer service

This post was last updated on July 20th, 2022 at 09:46 pm

Street CraneXpress is one of the UK’s leading providers of installation, maintenance and inspection services for overhead cranes.

It turned to CoreRFID to help it develop its own branded inspection software solution. XpressView, which is based on CoreRFID’s CheckedOK system, enables engineers to collect data on site using mobile devices, improving the accuracy and efficiency of inspection reports, and deliver results on-line to management and to customers.

Adding value to customers’ business

Street CraneXpress services a wide range of lifting equipment from different suppliers and provides safety inspections, maintenance, installation, relocation and refurbishment. It supports over 800 customers around the UK including large blue-chip companies.

The solution needed to be able to add value to its customers’ business by making the most of information collected during inspections as well as offering efficiency improvements that would help their competitiveness.

The XpressView system supports all of the products Street CraneXpress services, from compact 0.25-tonne hoists up to giant workshop overhead cranes able to lift up to 200 tonnes. It provides improved inspection reporting that gives customers immediate, online access to inspection reports, safety certificates and other details of inspections. As engineers capture data directly on site, it eliminates double entry of data that create opportunity for errors and delays.

Branded solution based on widely-used product

The XpressView system introduced by Street CraneXpress is based on CheckedOK, an inspection and certification data collection and reporting system that supports a wide range of industries including lifting, materials handling and construction. The system uses mobile devices to guide inspecting engineers and collect the results of inspections together with an online database that can provide details of inspections, copies of automatically generated safety certificates and reports on the whereabouts and condition of assets.

The system is easily adapted to a wide range of inspections and comes with many common inspection questionnaires already available. It can be customised to deliver information in a controlled way to a user’s own customers. This allowed Street CraneXpress to offer XpressView as a fully branded service specific to its customer needs but building on a widely used and well-supported software product.

The solution can support different tagging approaches including barcodes, RFID tags and QR codes.

Spotting missed inspections, preventing failures

The XpressView system enables Street CraneXpress customers to access information via a web-based portal. From the dashboard, they can access a range of reports on assets that Street CraneXpress services, together with information on the service and inspection history and photographic evidence of damage or failure.

The system can highlight items that are approaching their next service date and warn users if inspections have been missed. Service engineers have a site-specific list of equipment so they know which items should be present and which inspections or checks should be carried out. XpressView records the results of inspections. New assets found on site can be added to the database when they are discovered, providing customers with a constantly updated picture of the items under service.

Using the dashboard, users can spot trends in equipment failures, helping them to adjust usage or maintenance policies to prevent unexpected failures. The system’s approach follows the recommendations of the Health & Safety Executive as laid down in the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) and the code of practice published by the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association, so providing users with an assurance that lifting equipment safety is meeting the required industry standards.