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SWMS and plant risk assessments

Keep the safe work method statement and the plant risk assessment with the machine and the job they cover. Issue them to the crew on site, collect sign-on digitally, and know which ones are due for review.

Lachlan McRitchie

Lachlan McRitchie

GM of Operations

Published 3 September 2026

Trusted by construction, mining and field service teams

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What is a plant risk assessment?

A plant risk assessment is a written assessment of the hazards a specific item of plant introduces and the controls that manage them, kept current across that machine's working life. It is about the machine rather than the task, which is what separates it from a safe work method statement. In MapTrack the assessment is held against the asset record, so it travels with the machine between sites, it is one scan away for the operator, and its review date is tracked alongside the machine's service dates.

  • SWMS: The activity. How this high risk task is done safely, on this job.
  • Plant risk assessment: The machine. What this item of plant introduces, and how it is controlled.
  • Where they meet: On the asset record, so the operator and the person mobilising the machine see both.

Why does the paperwork and the plant drift apart?

Because they are usually kept in different systems by different people. Safety keeps documents in a folder tree or a safety platform. Operations keeps machines in a register or a spreadsheet. Neither knows what the other holds, so a machine can be mobilised to a job with an assessment nobody has reviewed in three years, and the only way to find out is to go looking. Holding the document against the asset removes the lookup.

The problem

The documents and the machines live in different places. A SWMS sits in a folder named after a job that finished last year. A plant risk assessment sits in a safety system that has no idea which excavator it describes. When a client asks for the current assessment for a specific machine before it comes on site, somebody spends an afternoon searching, and the version they find may not be the one the crew is working to.

How MapTrack addresses it

Hold the plant risk assessment against the asset it describes, so it moves with the machine and is one scan away for the operator. Publish the SWMS and its sign-on against the job or the asset so the crew completes it on their phone, with the record of who signed and when. Set review dates the same way you set service intervals and get alerted before they lapse. When a client asks for the pack before a machine mobilises, you filter rather than search.

How it works

  • 1

    Attach the assessment to the machine

    The plant risk assessment lives on the asset record, so it travels with the machine to the next site rather than staying in a job folder.

  • 2

    Publish the SWMS and sign-on to the crew

    Build sign-on as a form against the job or the asset. The crew completes it on their phone, and it keeps working with no reception once loaded.

  • 3

    Record who signed on and against what

    You get the person, the time and the version, which is the part a paper sheet in a ute never survives long enough to give you.

  • 4

    Track review dates like service dates

    Set a review date and get alerted before it lapses. Event-driven reviews stay your call: a modification, a new control or an incident.

  • 5

    Produce the pack on demand

    Filter to a machine or a site and pull its current documents together when a client or auditor asks, instead of searching a drive.

What changes when the document sits on the asset

Safety platforms hold documents. Asset systems hold machines. The gap between them is where the version drift lives.

The assessment moves with the machine

Held on the asset record, it goes to the next site with the plant instead of staying behind in a finished job folder.

One scan from the operator

The person about to start the machine opens its record from the QR label and sees the current document, not a link to a folder they have no access to.

Sign-on as a form, not a sheet

Who signed, when, and against which version. Collected on the phone and kept on the record rather than on a page in somebody's ute.

Review dates you can filter

Assessments have expiry the same way calibration does. Filter what is due, alert before it lapses, and stop finding out during an audit.

The law this sits under

In Australia, safe work method statements are required for high risk construction work and the duties around plant sit in the work health and safety framework. Safe Work Australia publishes model laws and codes of practice, and each state and territory enacts its own version, so the model text is a reference rather than the operative law where you are. Work from the current instrument for your jurisdiction.

Check the current source

MapTrack keeps the records these standards ask you to keep. It does not certify your work or make you compliant, and the current text of each instrument is the authority.

Put the paperwork where the machine is

Hold the assessment on the asset, publish sign-on to the crew, and track review dates like service dates.

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Frequently asked questions

No. A safe work method statement describes how your crew does a specific high risk task, and it has to be written by people who know that task and reviewed by the workers doing it. MapTrack holds the document you have written, keeps it against the plant and the job it covers, puts it in front of the crew on site and records who signed on to it.

A SWMS is about the activity: the high risk construction work being done, its hazards and the controls. A plant risk assessment is about the machine: the hazards a specific item of plant introduces and how they are controlled through its life, from selection to disposal. They are different documents with different review triggers, and a machine on multiple jobs will have one risk assessment and many SWMS.

Because the machine is the thing that moves. When the plant risk assessment lives on the asset, it travels with the machine to the next site, it is one scan away for the operator, and the person mobilising a machine to a new job can see straight away whether its assessment has been reviewed. A document in a folder tree tells you nothing about which machine it belongs to.

Yes. Build the sign-on as a form, publish it against the job or the asset, and the crew completes it on their phone. You get a record of who signed, when and against which version, and it keeps working with no reception once the form is loaded on the device.

Set a review date on the document the same way you set a service interval, and get alerted before it lapses. Reviews are also triggered by events rather than dates: a modification to the plant, a new control, an incident or a change to the way the work is done. MapTrack tracks the date; the trigger is a judgement your team makes.

No, and no software can make that claim. Your duties come from the work health and safety law in your jurisdiction and from the codes of practice under it. What MapTrack does is keep the records those duties ask you to keep, in a form you can produce quickly when a client, a regulator or an auditor asks.

Keep plant documents current and findable

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