Above and Beyond Two owners of large tower crane fleets cut risks by stepping up safety programs
...and date. Blue means the part has been visually inspected and is ready for further tests. Red means it failed an inspection or test. Green means it is safe and ready to ship to a job.
Morrow’s QC testing program began about six years ago. Every time a crane comes back from a rental, it gets a top-down inspection. In New York and California, where it is required by law, next comes a round of nondestructive tests: Tower sections are tested using the magnetic-particle method, which exposes bad welds or cracks unseen to the naked eye. It tests bolts using the ultrasonic method, which also detects breaks in the material. In other jurisdictions, Morrow tests its bolts every five years, and it tests sections only after structural repairs are made.
Interestingly, Liebherr Group, the German crane manufacturer that supplies the most equipment to Morrow, only requires a visual inspection of these parts, Juhren says, adding that it is good to go “above and beyond” the rules Another key risk that Morrow recently identified: electrical shock. Most tower cranes in the U.S. run on 480-volt electric power.
When workers need to service a crane, Morrow has for years required them to lockout and tagout the crane. If they need to follow live circuits, however, they now need to wear special gear. “The biggest issue is not necessarily electrical shock but what they call arc flash,” Juhren explains. “If you create a dead short with high voltage, it basically shoots out a fireball.”
Spurred on by its insurers after such incidents, Morrow this summer began requiring technicians to wear special clothes, face shields and gloves that meet National Fire Protection Association’s arc-flash standard, NFPA 70e. “We were unaware of the full requirements up until last year,” says Juhren. “That’s when we decided to start our campaign.”
Paying the Piper It may not be the best of times, but contractors like J.E. Dunn and Morrow are taking advantage of economic downtime to reinvest in safety—even as U.S. regulations lag behind. After all, only two states in the U.S. now require independent crane inspections. And these initiatives—mandatory or voluntary—are large costs in a time of little revenue. Dunn’s crane fleet is only running at about 35% of capacity at the moment—down from 90% a year ago.
“When the ‘blue iron’ isn’t up in the air, that is a definite contributing factor in the profitability of the company,” explains Hall. But a potential bright light in the recession is these companies’ renewed focus on QC/QA—a lack of which regulators have identified as a contributing factor in recent crane fatalities across the country. “In this economy, most companies are holding onto every penny that they can,” Juhren says. “We are actually spending money and putting money back into our fleet.”
Mandatory crane inspections will only continue to increase, he adds. Starting on Jan. 1, Washington became the second state to enforce a rule that requires most cranes to receive a top-to-bottom inspection each year from a licensed surveyor. California has a similar rule. Federal rules require annual inspections, but do not require the inspector to be licensed.
And an updated federal rule, which lays out new training guidelines for crane workers, is expected to be published this coming July. An earlier draft of the rule had a new requirement for inspectors to be “qualified” but not...
