PPE Issue Register

What this tool does

CM8-41 is a register of the personal protective equipment you have issued: one line for each item handed to each person. It totals what you have spent, works out when each item falls due for replacement, shows the months where several replacements land together, and — the part that matters most — lists every inspection-critical item that has no inspection or fit test recorded against it.

Everything runs inside this one file. There is no account, no upload and no network request of any kind, so names, sizes and costs never leave the computer you are using.

A register is not an inspection

The same applies to the "Last inspection" date. It is a note that somebody says an inspection happened on that day — not the inspection record, and not evidence of one. Keep the actual reports, harness cards, fit-test certificates and defect notices wherever you keep them now; this register points at them.

Nor does it check conformity. The "Standard or specification" field stores whatever you type. Enter a standard the item does not meet and the tool will repeat it back on the printed report without complaint.

What to record

One line per item, per person, per issue. Two vests handed over on the same day is one line with a quantity of two. A vest today and another in March is two lines — the replacement clock starts separately on each.

• Employee — a name or a payroll reference. If the register will be shared internally, consider using references rather than names.
• Team — whatever unit you want the cost broken down by: department, site, crew, cost centre. Keep the spelling consistent or the chart will split one team into two.
• Item and size — enough that a replacement can be ordered from this line alone. Size is the field people skip and then regret: the wrong size is the most common reason PPE is not worn.
• Reason for issue — a person appearing repeatedly under "lost" or "size change" is telling you something.
• Condition — the condition when anyone last looked, not on the day you bought it. Marking an item "Replace" flags it as withdrawn from use regardless of its dates.

Expected life and replacement dates

Each line carries an expected life in months. The tool uses it to set a replacement date:

Month arithmetic clamps to the end of the month, so an item issued on the 31st with a one-month life falls due on the 28th, 29th or 30th as the calendar allows, never on the 1st of the following month.

A negative result is shown as "N over" and the line is marked overdue.

If an item has a manufacturer expiry, a shelf life or a fixed withdrawal date, put that date in the Replacement due (override) field instead of an expected life. An entered date always wins, and the tool will not let you enter both — one of them would be silently ignored, which is worse than being asked to choose.

Expected life is a planning estimate, nothing more. Boots on a wet yard wear out faster than boots in a dry store, and a set of gloves can be ruined in an hour. Treat the date as the point at which somebody should look at the item, not the point at which it stops protecting anybody. Equally, an item that reaches its date in good condition does not have to be thrown away — record the check and push the date out.

The fallback expected life setting fills in a life for records that have none of their own. It ships at zero, meaning those lines simply have no replacement date, because a made-up date on a printed report is more dangerous than a blank one. Set it only if you genuinely have a house rule.

Inspection-critical equipment

Some PPE is not simply worn until it looks tired. Fall-arrest equipment — harnesses, lanyards, anchors, inertia reels — and respiratory protective equipment carry examination and testing duties in most countries, usually at defined intervals, usually by a competent person, usually with a written record. The intervals and the wording differ, but the principle does not.

So the tool refuses to accept a fall-arrest or respiratory line that is not ticked as needing inspection. If a line is ticked and has no date against it, its status reads Never inspected in red, it is counted on the headline tiles, and it appears in the person table. That is deliberate: an item nobody has ever examined is the single most useful thing this register can point at.

For respiratory protection the date can be the face-fit test rather than an inspection. A tight-fitting mask that has never been fit-tested on the person wearing it is not providing the protection printed on the box, whatever the filter says.

The interval is a single setting applied to every inspection-required line. If your intervals genuinely differ by item — and for lifting and fall-arrest equipment they often do — set the interval to 0, leave that calculation switched off, and track the real dates in your examination records. Do not let a comfortable green line here stand in for a scheme you do not actually run.

Signing for issue

The "signed for" tick records that the person acknowledged receiving the item, and normally that they were told what it is for, how to check it and how to get a replacement. Unsigned lines are counted on a tile and listed per person.

Chasing signatures is not paperwork for its own sake. The signature is usually the only evidence that the instruction happened at all, and an unsigned line often means the item was left on a bench rather than handed over with a conversation.

Cost, and what it does not include

Enter the unit cost of one item, excluding any tax you reclaim, in your own currency — set it on the Settings tab. Lines with no unit cost count as zero, and the total cost tile says how many lines are in that state so you know the figure is understated rather than low.

The replacement tables and the "due by month" chart price replacements at the last issue price. That is a reasonable planning figure and a poor budget figure: it ignores price changes, quantity breaks, freight and the fact that you may not replace like with like. Use it to see the shape of the coming spend, then price the actual order properly.

Nothing here captures the cost of PPE not being available: the job that stopped, the person sent home, the injury that followed. Those are usually far larger than the register total.

Reading the headline figures

Every tile, chart and table obeys the filters, so a figure means "in this filter" and nothing more.

• Items issued — the sum of the quantity column, with the number of issue lines beneath. Ten pairs of gloves on one line count as ten items and one line.
• People equipped — distinct employee names in the filter. If you set the headcount on the Settings tab, it also shows the share covered. Names spelled two ways count as two people.
• Due within 30 days and Overdue — issue lines whose replacement date falls inside 30 days, or has already passed. Lines with no replacement date appear in neither, so the tile tells you how many of those there are.
• Unsigned issues — lines with no signature, with the count of inspection-critical items that have no inspection recorded underneath. Read that second number first.

The two tables

Replacements due and overdue lists everything already past its date, then everything falling due inside the lookahead window — 90 days by default, adjustable on the Settings tab — in date order, with the cost at the last issue price. This is the ordering list.

Issues by person gives one row per person: issue lines, items, total cost, unsigned lines and lines with no inspection record, sorted by cost. It answers two different questions at once — who holds what, and whose paperwork is incomplete.

Running it as a routine

A register that is filled in once and never opened again is worse than no register, because it creates confidence without information. A workable rhythm is: add lines as you issue, and once a month open the Reports tab, work the replacement table down to nothing, chase the unsigned lines, and check that no inspection-critical item is showing red.

When somebody leaves, do not delete their lines — the record of what was issued is often the thing you need later. Filter them out by date instead, or note the return in the notes field.

Printing and sharing

Print Report produces a report from whatever the current filter shows: header, headline figures, the four charts, both tables, the full register and your closing notes. Print to PDF to circulate it. The scope line under the title states the filter in force — clear the filters before issuing anything described as the whole register.

Saving your work

Records, settings and the report header are written to this browser's local storage as you type, and the toolbar shows the time of the last save. That storage belongs to one browser on one computer: another browser, a private window, a second machine or a clean-up tool that clears site data will not have it.

Treat Export .json as the real save — one file containing everything, which Import .json restores anywhere. Export CSV gives you the register for spreadsheet work and includes every filtered record, not only those drawn on screen. Reset asks twice, then erases everything this tool has stored. There is no undo.

The register holds identifiable people and, through sizes and fit notes, occasionally health information. Treat exports as confidential and keep them for as long as your own record-retention rules require — which, for equipment involved in an injury, is usually a good deal longer than you would expect.

Accuracy & disclaimer

This tool records what you enter and calculates from it. It cannot tell whether an item was suitable for the hazard, whether it fits, whether it still protects anybody, whether the standard quoted is genuine, or whether an inspection recorded here ever took place.

Duties to provide, maintain, examine and test protective equipment, the intervals that apply, who counts as competent, and how long records must be kept all differ by country and by industry. This is an internal record-keeping and planning aid, not legal advice, not an inspection regime, and not a substitute for a competent person looking at the equipment.