The honest answer to what an inspection costs: a quote built from your asset list. What drives the price in each regime, and the four things an accurate quote needs.
Partner with an independent inspection body to cover your clients’ statutory obligations. One point of contact across all four regimes, with verified written reports and nationwide, multi-site cover for every plant type.
Independent advice on compliance, written schemes of examination and inspection strategy, from competent engineer surveyors with no equipment to sell you.
Statutory Inspections for Manufacturing & Engineering
LOLER, PUWER, PSSR and COSHH LEV compliance from one independent inspection body.
No sector holds a denser statutory estate than manufacturing: cranes and slings under LOLER, presses and guarding under PUWER, air and steam under PSSR, and extraction under COSHH. Four regimes, four different clocks.
SEIS puts one independent competent person across all four, so the crane, the press, the receiver and the welding LEV sit in one calendar with one report portal.
Machine shops, foundries, fabricators and process plants
Cranes, presses, pressure systems and LEV together
Examinations planned around production windows
Defect gradings your QSHE system can act on
What needs inspecting
What needs inspecting on a factory floor
Each regime keeps its own clock. LOLER fixes 6 and 12 month cycles for lifting equipment and accessories. PUWER is risk-based everywhere except the power press, the one machine with a statutory examination cycle of its own. PSSR follows the Written Scheme. COSHH puts the LEV on a 14-month maximum. The table is the map most factories are missing.
Equipment
Regime
Statutory position
What you receive
Overhead travelling cranes
LOLER
Thorough examination at least every 12 months
Report of Thorough Examination
Jib cranes, hoists and runways
LOLER
Thorough examination at least every 12 months
Report of Thorough Examination
Chains, slings, eyebolts and accessories
LOLER
Every 6 months, each accessory individually identified
Report of Thorough Examination
Power presses working cold metal
PUWER
Every 6 months with interlocked, automatic or photo-electric guards; every 12 months with fixed guards or enclosed tools
Written record of thorough examination and test
Machining centres and guarded machinery
PUWER
Inspection at risk-based intervals, no fixed statutory date
Written record of inspection
Air compressors and receivers
PSSR
Written Scheme certified before use where the system exceeds 250 bar litres; examination to the scheme, report within 28 days
Written Scheme certification and examination report
Steam boilers and steam plant
PSSR
Steam is a relevant fluid at any pressure, so the Written Scheme applies from the first bar
Written Scheme certification and examination report
Welding fume and machining mist LEV
COSHH
Thorough examination and test at least every 14 months to HSG258
LEV test report
Printing, packaging and converting lines
PUWER
Inspection at risk-based intervals set from duty cycle and deterioration
Written record of inspection
Commercial laundry ironers, presses and calenders
PUWER
Risk-based intervals, with the steam supply examined to its own Written Scheme
Written record of inspection
Hydraulic oil is excluded as a relevant fluid, so a purely hydraulic press pack sits under PUWER rather than PSSR. The press itself may still carry the statutory power press cycle.
Sector compliance
Four regimes, one floor, one calendar
The compliance risk in manufacturing is rarely ignorance of a regime. It is the seams between them: the press examined as ordinary machinery when it carried a statutory cycle, or the steam line assumed to be below a threshold that does not exist for steam.
The power press exception
PUWER is risk-based everywhere except here. A power press working cold metal must be thoroughly examined and tested by a competent person at least every 6 months where it runs interlocked, automatic or photo-electric guards, and at least every 12 months where the tools are enclosed or the guards fixed. The cycle is statutory, the record is still a record and not a certificate, and HSG236 sets out what the examination must cover.
Guarding changes move the cycle. Retrofit a light curtain to a fixed-guard press and the examination interval halves with it.
Steam, air and the thresholds
For most fluids PSSR bites above 250 bar litres, which nearly every factory air system exceeds once the receiver is counted. For steam there is no threshold at all: steam is a relevant fluid at any pressure, so the smallest process boiler needs a certified Written Scheme of Examination before use and examination to that scheme, with reports inside 28 days.
The scheme comes first. Examining plant without a current certified WSE is not compliance, because the scheme defines what the examination must cover.
The four regime estate: why manufacturing compliance fragments
A manufacturing site is the one estate that reliably holds duties under all four statutory regimes at once. The overhead cranes, jib cranes and slings answer to LOLER and its Regulation 9 thorough examination cycle. The presses, guarding and machinery answer to PUWER. The compressed air receivers and any steam plant answer to PSSR through a Written Scheme of Examination. The weld bays and finishing extraction answer to COSHH through the 14 month LEV test. Four regimes, four documents, four clocks, and usually four different people who think somebody else is holding the calendar.
One machine shop, four statutory clocks: lifting on 6 and 12 months, work equipment on risk based intervals, pressure systems to the Written Scheme, extraction on 14 months.
That fragmentation is the sector's real compliance risk. Very few manufacturing failures are exotic; they are ordinary items sitting on the wrong clock or no clock. The overhead travelling crane gets examined because everyone can see it, while the four slings in the cupboard under it, accessories carrying their own 6 month tier, have never met an examiner. The compressor gets serviced quarterly and examined never, because servicing feels like coverage and the Written Scheme sits unread in a drawer.
The fix is structural, not heroic: one register, every asset, its regime, its interval and its document, owned by one named person. The rest of this guide maps the estate group by group.
Key point
A manufacturing estate holds LOLER, PUWER, PSSR and COSHH duties simultaneously; the risk is not exotic failure but ordinary equipment sitting on the wrong statutory clock, and one owned register is the cure.
Part 2 of 8
Lifting: cranes, hoists and the accessory tier nobody registers
The lifting estate divides into equipment and accessories, and the division carries different clocks. Overhead travelling cranes, jib cranes, hoists, fork lift trucks and lifting beams are lifting equipment on the 12 month tier unless a competent person's examination scheme sets different intervals. Everything that connects load to hook, chains, slings, shackles, eyebolts, lifting magnets, and the fork arms on your trucks, is an accessory on the 6 month tier, however small and however rarely used.
The accessory tier is where manufacturing estates fail most often, in two specific ways. First, the spares problem: slings bought as consumables, kept in a cupboard, never entered on the register, each one statutory lifting equipment in its own right needing Safe Working Load marking and a 6 month examination. Second, the fork arm problem: HSE repeatedly flags that fork arms are accessories with their own 6 month cycle regardless of the truck's 12 month examination, so a fork lift with a current annual report and no fork arm examinations is not compliant.
Each examination ends in a Report of Thorough Examination whose contents Schedule 1 fixes: identification, safe working load, the reason for the examination, defects on the statutory tiers with dates, and both examination dates. Keep them until the next report or two years, whichever is later.
Key point
Put every sling, shackle, magnet and fork arm on the register with its own 6 month clock; the accessory tier fails quietly precisely because the big cranes above it get all the attention.
Part 3 of 8
Pressure and work equipment: the receiver in the corner and the press on its own law
The pressure estate in a typical machine shop is small and easily missed: one or two air receivers, sometimes a steam generator for a wash plant, occasionally refrigeration. PSSR applies to steam at any pressure and to other relevant fluids above the 250 bar litre threshold, and the compliance instrument is the Written Scheme of Examination: certified by a competent person before the system runs, then examined to the scheme with the report following within 28 days. The receiver behind the compressor is the single most commonly unexamined statutory item in the sector, because it hums along for years and its servicing feels like compliance. It is not; care is not judgement.
Work equipment sits under PUWER. Regulation 5 requires everything maintained in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair; Regulation 6 requires inspection where safety depends on installation conditions or where deterioration can lead to danger, and the inspection produces a written record, not a certificate. The intervals are risk based and yours to determine, with one exception the sector must know: power presses run on fixed statutory inspection cycles of their own, with guarding examined and records kept to the letter. If you run power presses, treat them as their own regime inside PUWER.
Key point
The air receiver needs a certified Written Scheme and examination to it, PUWER produces records on risk based intervals you set, and power presses carry fixed statutory cycles of their own; none of the three is covered by a service contract.
Worked example
Worked example: the audit that found a compliant factory failing three ways
A precision engineering firm, sixty operators, books a full estate review believing itself compliant: the two overhead cranes carry current reports, the machines are guarded, the compressor is serviced quarterly on contract.
The visible estate was compliant; the failures were the sling drawer, the receiver behind the compressor and the fork arms, three items on nobody's clock.
The review confirms the cranes are impeccable, then finds the gaps in an afternoon. A drawer holding eleven chain slings and webbing slings, bought over a decade, zero on the register, zero examined, several showing wear an examiner would tier immediately. The 270 litre air receiver behind the serviced compressor: no Written Scheme has ever been drawn, so every day it runs is a day outside PSSR, and the service contract does not mention it because it cannot. And the three fork lifts: current 12 month reports, fork arms never separately examined on their 6 month accessory tier.
None of this costs much to fix, and that is the point of the example. The slings are examined in one visit and three are scrapped. A competent person draws and certifies the scheme for the receiver and examines to it. The fork arms join the accessory cycle. Total disruption: one day. The counterfactual, a sling failure over an operator or a receiver failure at pressure, is the version the enforcement statistics record.
Key point
Compliant looking factories fail in the drawer, behind the compressor and at the fork heel; a one day estate review against all four regimes costs less than any single one of those failures.
Part 5 of 8
Signs a manufacturing estate is running on assumed compliance
Slings, shackles or eyebolts anywhere on site that do not appear on the lifting register
Fork lifts with current annual reports and no separate 6 month fork arm examinations
An air receiver that is serviced but has no certified Written Scheme of Examination
Power presses inspected on the same casual cycle as the rest of the machinery
LEV filters changed on schedule with no 14 month thorough examination and test booked
One regime's paperwork immaculate while nobody can say who owns the other three
Examination reports filed unread, with defect sections nobody has actioned
The maintenance contractor assumed to be doing the statutory examinations they were never engaged for
New machinery commissioned without anyone asking which regime it lands in
Key point
Every flag is the same error wearing different overalls: care mistaken for judgement; the audit that clears them is one register, four regimes, no exceptions.
Part 6 of 8
The manufacturing compliance calendar: four clocks, one page
Run the estate off a single calendar built from the statutory fixed points outward. Accessories and anything lifting people: every 6 months. Other lifting equipment: every 12, or to the examination scheme. Pressure systems: the intervals the Written Scheme sets, with the 28 day report window after each examination. LEV: at least every 14 months, which drifts through the year rather than repeating annually, so anchor it in the diary, not in memory. PUWER inspections: the risk based intervals you determined, written down, with power presses on their statutory cycles.
The four clocks run at different speeds by design: plot every asset's next due date on one page and the collision points and slack windows appear immediately.
Two calendar disciplines pay for themselves. First, plot everything twelve months forward and look for collision weeks, then move the movable examinations into slack production windows; examiners can flex, order books cannot. Second, pair the calendar with the two column audit, every asset showing last serviced and last examined as separate facts, because the estates that muddle those columns are the ones the worked example describes. Where servicing and examination blur on your site, our guide to servicing versus thorough examination draws the line precisely.
Key point
Build one forward calendar from the statutory fixed points, plot every asset's next due date on it, and keep serviced and examined as two columns; the estate that can show that page is the estate that passes.
Part 7 of 8
The document set: four regimes, four different pieces of paper
Part of running four regimes well is knowing exactly what each one hands you, because the documents are not interchangeable and the people who ask for them know the difference. LOLER produces a Report of Thorough Examination whose contents Schedule 1 fixes, per item, per examination. PUWER produces a written record of inspection, not a certificate, and a supplier who offers to certify your machinery under PUWER is describing something the regulations do not contain. PSSR produces two documents, the certified Written Scheme itself and the examination reports made to it within their 28 day window. And COSHH produces the LEV thorough examination and test report, hood by hood, judged against commissioning.
Who asks matters as much as what exists. HSE inspectors ask by regime and expect the right document named correctly. Insurers' engineering surveyors reconcile schedules against reports and price the gaps. Customer and supply chain auditors increasingly sample all four, and a manufacturing business tendering into automotive, rail or energy supply chains will meet questionnaire lines that quote these regulations verbatim.
The filing discipline that serves all of them is one estate file, organised by asset, each item showing its regime, its current document and its next date, retrievable in minutes. The reports are the product of the whole programme; file them like it.
Key point
Four regimes, four distinct documents, report, record, scheme and test: name them correctly, file them by asset, and every inspector, insurer and auditor gets their answer in minutes.
Part 8 of 8
Running the programme: one body, four regimes, reports people read
The practical question for a manufacturing duty holder is not what the law requires, mapped above, but how to run it without four separate arrangements. The efficient answer is one independent inspection body covering all four regimes on one schedule: one visit stream, one report format, one calendar, and a single competent person relationship that learns your plant year on year. Independence matters as much as coverage: the examiner should sit outside the maintenance chain entirely, selling no repairs and no parts, so a defect on the report generates no invoice for the person who wrote it.
Then work the reports, because the report is where the value lives. Read every one within the week. Action the dated defects and record the closure. Track observations across cycles, they are free condition monitoring on ageing plant. And feed the examiner your service histories before each visit, because an examination briefed on what has changed since last time is sharper than one walking in cold.
Booked well, the whole programme is undramatic: examinations placed in production slack, reports arriving promptly, defects closed before their dates, and an estate file any HSE inspector, insurer or customer auditor can walk through in minutes. That file is also commercial armour; increasingly it is the customer audit, not the regulator, that asks for it first.
Key point
One independent body across all four regimes, reports read and actioned within the week, and an estate file that survives any audit: manufacturing compliance run as a system, not four emergencies.
Machine shops, fabricators, food and process plants, foundries and assembly operations, from a single jib crane to a full four-regime estate across several units.
How quickly can you attend?
Usually within a few working days, and we plan recurring examinations around planned maintenance windows and shutdowns. Call 0330 043 8191 to align the calendar with production.
Why does our power press have a different cycle from the rest of the machinery?
It is the one machine PUWER gives a statutory examination cycle: at least every 6 months with interlocked, automatic or photo-electric guarding, or every 12 months with fixed guards or enclosed tools. Everything else under PUWER runs on risk-based intervals, as our PUWER guide explains.
Is our compressed air system really in scope for PSSR?
Almost certainly. Count the system's pressure times volume: above 250 bar litres the Written Scheme duty applies, and a typical factory receiver clears that comfortably. HSE guidance is at hse.gov.uk.
Our boiler is tiny. Does it still need a Written Scheme?
Yes. Steam is a relevant fluid at any pressure, so there is no small-boiler exemption: a certified Written Scheme of Examination before use, then examination to the scheme with the report within 28 days.
Do lifting accessories follow the crane's cycle?
No. Chains, slings and eyebolts are accessories on the 6-month cycle even where the crane itself runs 12 months, and each item is individually identified in the report.
What does the welding extraction need?
A thorough examination and test at least every 14 months by a competent person working to HSG258, with the report kept for five years. Fume plumes escaping the hood at the workpiece are the failure we photograph most.
Can all four regimes go into one visit?
Usually, yes. We build the calendar so LOLER, PUWER, PSSR and LEV dates coincide wherever the intervals allow, which cuts visits, downtime and cost without shortening any statutory cycle.
Book statutory inspections for your Manufacturing & Engineering operation
The honest answer to what an inspection costs: a quote built from your asset list. What drives the price in each regime, and the four things an accurate quote needs.
Partner with an independent inspection body to cover your clients’ statutory obligations. One point of contact across all four regimes, with verified written reports and nationwide, multi-site cover for every plant type.
Independent advice on compliance, written schemes of examination and inspection strategy, from competent engineer surveyors with no equipment to sell you.
