For industrial contractors
Industrial safety file
Heavy plant, heavy lifts and a client whose process does not stop for you.
Generate your safety file — R500What the law requires
There is no separate safety file law for industrial contractors. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and the Construction Regulations 2014 are national and trade-neutral — they apply to industrial work exactly as they apply to every other trade on a South African site, with no minimum project size exemption.
What changes with the trade is the content. The regulations require the file to reflect the work actually being carried out, so the risk assessments, method statements, appointments and registers in an industrial file are driven by the hazards industrial contractors actually create.
Why an industrial file is different
Industrial construction happens around operating plant, at scale, with lifting equipment and energy sources that make ordinary construction look gentle. The file carries more lifting and isolation documentation than a building file, and has to interlock with the client's own systems.
What to get right in an industrial safety file
These are the hazards that should be reflected properly in the risk assessments and method statements — the parts of the file that are easiest to leave generic and hardest to defend when they are.
Lifting operations
Cranes, gantries and rigging are central to industrial work, and a lift plan for anything non-routine is the control. Load test certificates, competent rigger appointments and inspection records for chains, slings and shackles need to be current — expired certificates are among the most common findings on an industrial audit.
Working near live process
Pipework, vessels and lines that are still in service run alongside the work area. Your file has to show how isolation is confirmed with the plant operator, and how work stops if the process state changes unexpectedly.
Noise as a health exposure
Sustained industrial noise causes hearing loss slowly enough that nobody notices until it is permanent. The Noise-Induced Hearing Loss Regulations 2003 bring exposure assessment, hearing protection and audiometric testing duties that belong in the file alongside the medical certificates of fitness.
Also governed by: Noise-Induced Hearing Loss Regulations 2003
Where noise exposure reaches the prescribed level, exposure assessment, hearing protection and audiometric testing become regulated duties.
Documents an industrial scope typically triggers
On top of the core compliance pack every construction file carries, industrial contractors should expect to need these. The exact set depends on your scope.
- —Heavy lifting, rigging and crane procedure; rigging method statement and risk assessment
- —Crane operator and supervisor appointments (CR 22); mobile crane operations risk assessment
- —Electrical lock-out procedure and safe work permit system
- —Inspecting lifting equipment, hearing loss and noise-induced hearing loss toolbox talks
- —PPE issue register and training register
- —Load test certificates, noise exposure assessments and medical certificates of fitness from the relevant service providers
*Items marked * are records you obtain from third parties and file alongside the documents MySafetyFile generates.
What gets checked first in an industrial safety file?
Usually lifting documentation. Load test certificates for the machine and the tackle, the rigger's appointment, and the lift plan for the specific lift. They are date-bound, they expire quietly, and they are the fastest thing for an auditor to falsify-check against the equipment standing in front of them.
More background: what a construction safety file is and what a compliant template must contain.
Get your industrial safety file in 8 minutes
MySafetyFile generates a complete, site-specific construction safety file — drawn from a library of 351 documents across 9 categories — in about 8 minutes for R500. Register free, enter your project and scope, and download a file that is ready to print or submit. There is no monthly fee, and one account handles unlimited projects.
Every document is aligned with the OHS Act and Construction Regulations 2014, developed by a SAIOSH-registered practitioner, and carries a unique identification code that ties it to the account and project it was generated for.