Inspection Day Again
It was that time of year again for us! It becomes a struggle to write news posts about our annual inspection day and find things to say that we haven't said before. The truth is though that Inspection day is a very important one for us and we always try to post about it for a few reasons; It helps our customers know what a serious commitment we have towards safety (regardless of the cost) and it also helps encourage other companies to do the same.
This year we had to go a little earlier than planned. It's an annual inspection and the last time was March 2021, so we did have a whole month left before it needed doing. However, we now have so much equipment that the hall we usually use is too small and we can't fit some of the larger equipment in it! We have a 100 foot fun-run, giant RUSH slide, helter-skelter and other very big equipment that just can't fit in that hall.
Even if they did fit inside, there's so many of them now that it would take up too much floor space of the hall (even rolled up and not inflated) that there would hardly be enough left to actually inflate the bouncy castles and have enough room for the inspector to do their job.
We wanted to use Welling School hall because of it's close proximity to us as well as it's size, but sadly it isn't available very often, so we sacrificed the month left of the inspection date and chose to go withthe bigger hall that's more suitable.
Amazingly we managed to get everything inspected in one day. We was very grateful to the inspector who started very early and stayed extra late to get it completed, but even then it was only possible because "testing day" has now become a 5 man operation, with staff constantly un-packing and packing away inflatables ahead of the inspector to give him a clear run.
We're still using the same inspector, the same guy that profesionaly repairs and modified our inflatables. It's been 9 years now and we have no plans of changing - There's somehting to be said for loyalty and Mike does a great job and is prepared to work hard to ensure we got everything finished in a day. We're not entirely confident that next year this will be possible, we may have to split "testing day" into two days due to the sheer number of inflatables to get through - Or possibly call in back-up!
One good thing that speeds it up is that we only purchase inflatables with PIPA tags already on them, which means we know that the model itself is technically sound and the test is largely based around any wear and tear rather than checking measurements of step length and model design. When an inflatable is logged in the PIPA system an anual re-check is a much quicker process rather than adding all the details of an entirely new inflatable - This helps speed things up and makes it possible to get through the enourmous amount of equipment that we now hold.
It's along and hard day and at the end of it everyone's back aches, but it has to be done. We aren't a particulary very well regulated industry, we voluntarily engage in this process and have to pay for the inspector, the hall, the staff and all of the PIPA tags and updates; It's an expensive as well as labour intensive process. However, by the end of it we have a certificate that's recognised by the HSE stating that the inflatables meet the BSEN standard and are safe for use!
PIPA tags are an increasingly requested thing when we work with schools. For many companies they lose out on providing to school fetes because they don't meet this criteria, but we have been having our inflatables PIPA tagged (at least the ones that fall under the scheme) ever since we started our company over 9 years ago and locally we're know for these high standards, which is why we are trusted to provide to so many school fetes!
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