Health and safety
The safety officer’s photo log: PPE, emergency equipment, workstations — one photo a shift
How to turn safety procedures into a photo standard you can check: 5S workstations, PPE on its hook, emergency equipment in order, escape routes clear.
A written rule is only as good as the proof that it’s being followed. The DVR (Documento di valutazione dei rischi, the written risk assessment required by Legislative Decree 81/2008) says how the workstation is to be left, where the PPE goes, that the extinguisher is in its place and the escape route is clear. Then the shift ends at 10pm and nobody checks. This guide is about closing that gap with the simplest thing there is: a photo.
From procedure to photo standard
Any safety rule about how things are can be photographed. Not “the operator wears goggles” — that’s a behaviour — but “the goggles are on their hook at the end of the shift”, “the bench is clear”, “the yellow walkway is unobstructed”, “the extinguisher has its seal and an up-to-date tag”. Take your procedures, separate the behaviours from the states, and for every state take a photo of what it looks like when it’s right. That’s the rule, in a language that needs no translating.
What to photograph in an assembly department
- The workstation at the end of the shift — tools on their shadow outlines, bench clear, nothing on the floor, drawers shut.
- The PPE — on the hook or in the cabinet, station by station: gloves, goggles, ear defenders, whatever the DVR calls for there.
- The emergency equipment — extinguisher, first-aid box, eyewash station, emergency stop within reach, signage in place.
- The escape routes and the walkways — clear, with the trolley parked inside its area, not across the way.
- The machine guards — covers closed, light curtains not bypassed, the key where it belongs.
Five photos per workstation, once, and you have the standard for the whole department.
Who takes the photo, and when
Not the RSPP (Responsabile del servizio di prevenzione e protezione, the health and safety officer every employer must appoint under the same decree): the operator, at the end of the shift, the same way they clock out. Two minutes, on their phone. Precisino checks the photo against the reference photo and answers straight away: all good, or what’s missing. The operator fixes it before leaving; the reminder doesn’t wait for next month’s audit. The RSPP reads the log: which workstations are holding up, which aren’t, and since when.
What stays in the log
For every photo: date, time, workstation, who, outcome, what was missing, and the photo itself. It’s the proof that the procedure is being followed — or, when it wasn’t, that the reminder went out the same day. It does not replace the DVR, the training or the periodic inspections of the plant: it sits alongside them, and it’s the part that is almost always missing today — the bit between the rule and what actually happens.
Where to start
One workstation, five photos, one week. Do the first audit phone in hand, with the line leader: if the reference photos are right, the verdicts will say things you both recognise. Then roll it out further. The procedures don’t change: they just move from paper to photos.
Start with the workstation in front of you
Photograph a workstation the way it looks when it’s right, and see what Precisino finds in it: it suggests the checkpoints, you correct them. It opens straight away — no sign-up, no password — and whatever comes out of that photo stays yours.
Published 7 September 2026 · Updated 16 September 2026