Given the size of plant machinery, you might think it’s unlikely to be stolen. However, plant machinery is highly valuable and that means thieves can target it.
As a plant machinery supplier, we want to help ensure your equipment stays safe and in good working order, so here are five tips for preventing theft of this valuable machinery.
Secure your site
This not only prevents theft of your machinery but also of other supplies and tools. Security needs to be robust, which means installing CCTV cameras and ensuring that your site is fitted with appropriate alarms.
It goes without saying that you need to ensure your site is properly secured with fencing and padlocks where appropriate. While the building site itself might be quite open, you can make the perimeter secure.
Use security lights
Security lights act as a deterrent for would-be thieves in many situations and they also ensure that if someone does break into your site, you are more likely to get clear images of them on your CCTV.
Shackle your machinery together
For smaller pieces of plant machinery, consider chaining them together overnight or when they are not in use to make it more difficult to steal them. This acts as a further deterrent for anyone thinking of stealing your equipment.
It also makes it much more difficult to carry out a theft quickly, giving the authorities time to arrive at your site and prevent the criminals from getting away with any of your equipment.
Mark your machinery
If you have purchased heavy plant machinery, rather than hiring equipment, make sure you mark it with your address and potentially company name. This doesn’t need to be on show, but should be somewhere accessible to enable someone to check who it belongs to if it is stolen.
Keep a record of all of your plant machinery and equipment too, so that should you be targeted by thieves you can provide the police with a comprehensive list of exactly what’s missing.
Immobilise your vehicles
It’s advisable to fit an immobiliser to all of your heavy plant vehicles to prevent them from being taken. Also make sure that everyone who uses your equipment removes the keys from the vehicle when it is not in use.
That might sound obvious, but it can be easy to be complacent, especially with heavy plant machinery that can feel “too big” to steal.
