Safety around Cranes. How to Best Protect Your Business
Safety is the top priority of crane operation. Cranes handle massive loads, and those loads can be very dangerous. Under Australian laws, crane operation safety compliance is clearly defined to very high levels of detail.
These safety requirements are stringently enforced, not just by the government, but by all good crane businesses. Crane operators are trained to a very high degree of competency. Safety training is a mandatory part of compliance, and competency has to be demonstrated prior to certification of competence and award of a crane operator license.
Safety Essentials
For business owners, the compliance and competency issues are just the beginning of the story about crane safety. Your expert crane operators and supervisors are your best asset in making sure that safety in theory gets turned into safety in practice.
On-site, safety practices are strictly enforced. There’s quite a lot of enforcing to be done, too.
On-site Hazards
These hazards can be anything from terrain obstructions to crane movements in obstacle courses on the ground. You can be absolutely sure that your operators will point out any hazards ASAP, but you need to maintain a very high level of situational awareness to manage these issues before they become safety risks. Plan ahead to ensure these problems never arise.
Access to Areas of Crane Operation
This basic site operation may sound simple enough in theory, but problems do occur. If you’ve got cranes moving around a busy site, you need to be sure that access is only granted to the right people.
The classic case of a major risk management issue is someone walking onto a crane operation site and becoming an instant liability. Uncontrolled access is simply unacceptable, either by law or in terms of common sense safety management.
Crane Selection
At the front and centre of basic risk management is ensuring your choice of cranes can actually manage their loads. This problem may seem bizarre to the experienced operators, but it’s not at all uncommon for someone to try to put an oversize load on a crane, even against the strongly-expressed advice of experts. This problem is easily avoided by ensuring that lift capacity is more than adequate for on-site needs.
Site Movements
Another avoidable range of problems is simply moving the cranes around on site. Site movements should be planned meticulously. Plan your crane movements to make absolutely sure there are no hazards, no risks and no possible mistakes.
Even in the very best crane operations, accidents are caused by exactly these fundamental issues. Work safe, work smart, and you’ll never have these problems.
Looking for Top-Quality Crane Hire?
Surf City Cranes are your one-stop shop for quality cranes of all types on the Gold Coast and in Brisbane. Come and see our excellent range of Franna, Manitou, and other top-brand cranes and accessories. Call us on 0421 665 654 or 0402 269 535 or contact us online with any enquiries.
