This is the smallest feature on the site and the one that changes the most. Print a barcode or QR tag, fix it to the device, and every check made against that device requires somebody to physically stand in front of it and scan. No scanner hardware, no app store licence — just the camera already in the auditor's pocket.
Tagging a building is a one-time job, usually done alongside the first audit round so the two exercises pay for each other.
Printed in sheets on ordinary label stock, in whichever format suits your environment and label printer.
No dedicated scanner hardware to purchase, maintain or replace when it is dropped in a plant room.
The scan identifies the device type and opens its own check points, which removes the most common source of a wrong entry.
The single feature that distinguishes evidence from a claim — and the first thing an inspector tends to probe.
The entry is stamped at the moment of the scan rather than at the moment somebody writes up the round.
For devices in positions where a camera struggles, an NFC tap opens the same record.
Damaged or removed tags are reprinted against the same device, so its full history stays intact.
Which devices are tagged, which are not, and which tags have not been scanned in a full cycle.
Where a tag is genuinely unreadable, the device can be found by code or location — and that exception is logged.
Both produce a record. Only one of them establishes that a person was in the same room as the equipment.
No. Tags are read with the camera on a standard phone or tablet. Dedicated scanners tend to be the first thing that breaks, gets lost or ends up locked in one supervisor's drawer — which is usually how a tagging programme quietly dies.
It depends on device count, but it is a one-time exercise and most sites fold it into their first audit round: the auditor walks the area, fixes the tag, scans it, verifies the register entry and completes the check in the same pass. Tagging a few hundred devices is typically a matter of days, not weeks.
A replacement is reprinted against the same device record, so its history is not orphaned. The system also reports which devices have not been scanned within a full cycle, which is how missing or unreadable tags surface before an inspector finds them.
It is a fair question, and worth being honest about: no system of this kind is theft-proof against deliberate falsification. What tagging changes is the default. Filling in a register at a desk requires no effort at all; faking a scanned, timestamped, photographed round requires sustained deliberate effort by somebody who knows they are falsifying a safety record. Combined with photo evidence and independent closure verification, it moves the record from unverifiable to auditable.
Where a camera struggles — poor light, an awkward mounting position, a device behind a grille. NFC stickers are read by tapping the phone against them. They cost more per unit, so most sites use QR as standard and NFC only for the awkward cases.
No. The tag holds an identifier that resolves to the device record in the system. That means the tag never goes out of date, and a damaged or copied tag exposes nothing about the site.
We will print one, fix it to something in the room, and scan it on the call. It makes the point faster than a slide.
