Equipment condition report

An equipment condition report is a dated record of the physical and working state of a specific item, used to track deterioration and settle damage questions.

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Also called: condition assessment, equipment inspection report.

Keep the grading scale short

The instinct is a ten-point scale. In practice, anything beyond three or four states stops being applied consistently — two people grading the same drill will disagree between a 6 and a 7, so the numbers become noise.

What works is a small set of states that map to decisions: usable, usable but needs attention, not usable, retired. A coarse grade applied consistently by everyone is worth more than a fine one applied differently by each person.

When to produce one

Four moments are worth capturing: at acquisition, so you have a baseline; at handover in both directions, which is what settles damage questions; after any incident; and on a schedule for equipment where deterioration is gradual and safety-relevant.

Scheduled inspections are where condition reporting earns its keep for regulated equipment — lifting gear, electrical, medical devices — because the report is the compliance evidence.

The value is in the sequence

A single condition report tells you almost nothing. Five of them across eighteen months tell you whether an item is stable or declining, and declining equipment is what you want to catch before it fails in use.

This is also the cheapest available input to replace-or-repair decisions: an item with three condition downgrades and a rising repair spend is making the argument for you.

What goes wrong without it

Without dated condition history, deterioration is only noticed at the point of failure — which is usually the moment the equipment was needed.

How Itefy handles it

Itefy tracks condition per item with a changelog, so every downgrade is dated and visible alongside the item's issues, repairs and usage. Read more.

Equipment condition report — common questions

Who should fill in a condition report?

Whoever is closest to the equipment at the moment that matters — the person returning it, the technician who serviced it, the inspector. Reports filled in later by someone who was not there are guesses with a date on them.

How detailed should a condition report be?

Detailed enough to justify the grade, short enough that people actually complete it. A state, a photo and one line of context beats a twenty-field form that gets skipped.

Related terms

Equipment loan agreement

An equipment loan agreement is a short written record of who borrowed which equipment, when it is due back, and what condition it was in when it left.

Definition

Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance is servicing equipment on a planned schedule — by time or by usage — to reduce the chance of it failing unexpectedly in use.

Definition

Chain of custody

Chain of custody is an unbroken record of who held a specific item, and when, from the moment it was acquired to the moment it left the organisation.

Definition

Equipment depreciation

Equipment depreciation is the accounting method for spreading an item's cost across the years it is expected to be useful, rather than expensing it all at purchase.

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