Contractor control
Signing in robot and automation installers: contractor control for UK sites
A robot, a cobot or a fleet of mobile robots arrives with people attached, and on your site they are contractors. You sign them in, tell them your rules, look at their paperwork, issue a permit where your own rules call for one, and count them if the alarm goes. This page is about those people, not the machine.
From £599 setup and £150 a month plus VAT, iPad and stand included. Last reviewed 1 October 2026.
The people
Who is on your site when a robot arrives
The installers
The crew who deliver, position and fix the equipment, often a subcontractor you have never met.
The integrator’s engineers
They wire, program and commission the system, on and off site for weeks, and not always the same faces.
The service engineer
Back for maintenance, a fault or a software change, long after the project team has gone.
HSE’s guideManaging contractors (HSG159)has a line for the repeat visit: “Don’t let contractors or their subcontractors turn up and just get on with the job, even if they were there the day before. Things may have changed.”
The legal basis
What you are expected to hold on them
No Act or regulation read for this page lists documents to hold on a contractor. The law sets duties, and a record shows what was done.
Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 3(1)
A duty to people you do not employ
It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety.
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 12(3)
Instructions and information
Every employer shall ensure that any person working in his undertaking who is not his employee … is provided with appropriate instructions and comprehensible information regarding any risks to that person’s health and safety which arise out of the conduct by that employer … of his undertaking.
HSE, Using contractors: a brief guide (INDG368)
RAMS and insurance
Its example questions for a contractor include existing risk assessments, a safety method statement and, “if required”, Employers’ Liability Compulsory Insurance. It also says: “A safety method statement is not required by law.” RAMS and an insurance certificate on file are what your own procedure asks for.
HSE, Managing contractors (HSG159)
Signing in and out
Step 3 of its five begins “All contractors sign in and out”. The guide was written for smaller chemical companies and says it will also be of use to other industries. Following HSE guidance is not compulsory.
Read at source on 1 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice: consult a competent person.
Contractor management, the part at your doorISO 45001 and contractors
Permits
Commissioning and maintenance
Whether a commissioning or maintenance job needs a permit is decided by your site’s own permit rules and the competent person who wrote them. HSE’s leaflet Using contractors lists “the working procedures, including any permits-to-work” among the things to settle with a contractor. This page gives no instruction on the work itself.
Fire roll call
Contractors are in the count
Article 15of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 has the responsible person establish procedures “to be followed in the event of serious and imminent danger to relevant persons”, andArticle 2defines those as “any person (including the responsible person) who is or may be lawfully on the premises”. A contractor signed in on the kiosk is on the roll call, read from a phone, until signed out. The Order applies in England and Wales.
At your front door
How the kiosk handles it
- A sign in for every person, every visitPlatform. Name, company and the person they are here for, with a vehicle registration if they have one. Over a three week install that is a record for each person on each day, with times in and out.
- Your induction wording, accepted by namePlatform. Your site rules or induction wording are on screen, and nobody is signed in without accepting. The record keeps who accepted which exact wording, and when. There is one wording per site, shown to everyone.
- RAMS and insurance, held against a permitPermit to Work module, early access. The contractor’s office gets a link, completes the RAMS and uploads insurance, health and safety policy and method statements. Your manager marks each one and authorises the permit, or sends it back. On arrival the engineer enters a six digit code at the kiosk and accepts the RAMS on their own phone, and does so again on each return visit.
Being straight with you
What it does not do
- It does not track, register or count robots, or any other equipment. It records people.
- It does not judge whether RAMS are adequate, an engineer is competent or insurance is in date. A person at your site does.
- On the platform alone, RAMS and insurance stay in your own files.
- A platform sign in still open at 23:59 UTC is closed automatically, so an engineer working through the night leaves the roll call until signed in again.
- It does not make a site compliant with anything on this page. It produces records.
Permit to Work is a module at £150 a month plus VAT, on top of the platform.
Before you ask
Questions before the installers arrive
Are a robot vendor’s engineers contractors on our site?
HSE’s leaflet Using contractors says a contractor is anyone you ask to do work for you who is not an employee. Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 puts a duty on an employer towards persons not in their employment.
Does the law say we must hold their RAMS and insurance?
No Act or regulation read for this page lists documents to hold on a contractor, and HSE’s leaflet Using contractors says a safety method statement is not required by law. It gives risk assessments, a method statement and, if required, Employers’ Liability Compulsory Insurance as things you could ask about. What you ask for is set by your own procedure.
Does the kiosk track or count the robots?
No. It records people: who signed in, for whom, the wording they accepted and when they left. It holds no register of robots or other equipment.
Do the same engineers sign in again every day of a long install?
Yes. Each arrival is its own sign in, with the site wording accepted again.
Next step
Tell us who is coming, and for how long
Fifteen minutes on the phone. How many engineers, how many weeks, and what you want to be able to show afterwards.
Book a 15 minute callIf it is not a fit we will say so on the call.
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