Birch Equipment’s maintenance crews are deep into annual inspections on all major fleet as part of Birch’s comprehensive preventive maintenance program — putting their expertise, time and resources into maintaining safe and operational equipment for job sites.
At minimum, its recommended that all boom and scissors used on job sites — whether provided by a rental company or contractor-owned — receive annual inspections. Birch follows inspection requirements & recommendations from manufacturers and adds its own internal checklist for safety and operational efficiencies.
Inspections can reveal a range of safety issues. More often, concerns range from the simplest items like worn, destroyed or missing safety and warning decals to more serious issues like safety features that have been bypassed. Some of the most common include unplugging back up alarms or disabling limit switches designed to restrict equipment movement or weight limits. Operators who disable these items for convenience create a safety hazard on their job sites. Other important issues often found during annual inspection include oil leaks and worn hydraulic hoses that could burst at any time and broken mirrors and seat belts.
Birch completes annual inspections on customer gear. Birch maintains annual inspection programs for many customers. Submit a maintenance request below or contact any Birch Store and Birch Staff can get you in contact with our Birch Maintenance Team.
Birch’s annual inspections are the most thorough, top to bottom review of gear for catching issues before they become a safety or mechanical problem. This is done in addition to regular maintenance throughout the year and an extensive check-in procedure each time a piece of gear is returned from a job site.
Annual inspections add a substantial volume of work to Birch shop operations. On a regular day, Birch teams turn up to 120-pieces a day company-wide. And with Birch’s growing fleet, so too has the number of inspections – from 200 pieces of gear to 400 between November and March. The added gear and complexity of equipment factors into how efficiently gear is turned, and as Birch continues adding fleet that incorporate new technology and added safety and environmental features like ANSI standards, there will be more items to inspect.
Keeping track of annual inspections Most manufacturers put decals on equipment to use to track annuals. Birch updates these decals with the latest inspection date and includes notes in its rental system for reference. The same is done for customer gear that Birch services, and Birch’s team notifies customers when it appears that an annual has not been completed.
Submit an online maintenance request HERE or call 1.866.72.BIRCH to schedule.
