The new Leisure Centre development, part of the broader Lyon Confluence project, is being built just south of the peninsula between the Rhone and Soane rivers. Eight companies are working on the job, including SMIE client Vinci Group.

The job will use more than 20 tower cranes, including both Liebherrs and Manitowoc Potains. The Leisure Centre site is one of the biggest jobs on the project, and will include activity areas, shops, hotels and car parking. There is very limited space on the site, and the cranes risk interference with the main regional hotel and the headquarters of Eiffage. It is cut in two by a busy SNCF railway line. The cranes must stay on site throughout the project, and SMIE needed to account for the evolution of the site.

The provision of the anti-collision systems was handled by SMIE’ssubsidiary in southern France, SMIESUD.

The main problem of this jobsite for SMIESUD was the coordination of the large number of contractors on site, necessary for the optimisation of the interference between the different cranes and nearby obstacles.

The SMIE AC243 system manages the interferences and the no overfly zones: public roads and the SNCF railway line are protected by a strip measuring 12 x 12 x 100m. This protected zone constitutes an additional difficulty for which SMIESUD had to adjust the configuration of the zoning function to allow for this additional complexity.

The jobsite also received the latest generation of Liebherr cranes, equipped with a new AKS interface. These cranes are managed by SMIESUD via a new protocol which simplifies the installation of the systems. This protocol was developed jointly by SMIE and Liebherr.

SMIESUD has also installed four SGC240 anti-collision supervisor units in the offices of the four jobsite managers. The supervisor units monitor and record the operation of the cranes. It also allows for secure access to the data via the internet.

The SGC240 is also an important maintenance tool as the service team at SMIE can connect to the site to diagnose any problems therefore increasing the efficiency of any interventions on site.

On four of the cranes on the Monolithe site (adjacent to the site of the Leisure Centre), the crane operators did not have adequate visibility to follow the progression of their loads and had to depend on the instructions by walkie-talkies despite the risks that this may engender.

In order to resolve this problem and to allow the crane driver to work in complete safety, SMIESUD has installed an Orlaco (for whom SMIESUD is an agent) camera on the trolley situated on the boom, above the hook on each of the cranes.

Aside from increasing the safety and comfort of the crane operator, the camera also improves the efficiency of the crane driver.

Didier Pallandre, project lead for Vinci Construction France Lyon, big projects department, has been working with SMIESUD for several years. “The SMIE system is the best system for this application,” he said.

“On jobsites of this size and importance, the SMIE system is the most adapted in terms of quality and safety. SMIESUD possesses a solid technical experience of large jobsites and moreover the crane operators already know this system very well.”