Why a spreadsheet of deadlines always fails eventually
An inspection register usually starts as a single file: equipment name, last inspection date, next inspection date. It works for the first few months. Trouble begins when the file starts living in several parallel versions — with maintenance, with the safety team, with the warehouse manager and in the mailbox of whoever last spoke to the service company.
The second source of error is the gap between a date and a document. The spreadsheet says the inspection happened, but the certificate sits in a binder, with the contractor or in an attachment from a year ago. During an inspection or a customer audit what counts is not the row in a table but the signed document, found in minutes.
The third problem is silence before the due date. A spreadsheet reminds nobody. News about an upcoming statutory inspection arrives only when someone deliberately opens the file and filters the dates — which in practice happens irregularly, and most often after the equipment has already been taken out of service.
VIMS reverses the order: the system watches the calendar and speaks first, and the register is one place where the asset, its cycle, its owner and every certificate live together.