A few years ago, German safety authorities blocked the passage of a comprehensive new standard for the design of cranes, EN 13000. They argued that operators could too easily override the safety system of the crane, the load moment indicator, by turning a key. This key switch, they felt, violated an essential safety principle and invalidated the entire standard.
Faced with the prospect of restarting years of design work, crane manufacturers in the Fédération Européene de la Manutention (FEM), including engineers from European crane manufacturers Grove, Tadano-Faun, Liebherr, Demag and Locatelli attempted to come up with a compromise revision to replace the override key with a set-up button. When pressed, this button would give extra capacity, but the crane could only work at 15% of maximum speed. After further wrangling, the revision was finalised in January 2008.
US crane user trade association the Specialised Carriers & Riggers Association formed a task force to oppose the potential changes in January. The group was interested for three reasons. First, Europe is the home market for many manufacturers of mobile cranes. Second, the change would affect all mobile cranes that could be sold in Europe, including all terrain cranes, rough terrain cranes, truck cranes and crawler cranes. Third, the SC&RA said that there is a general safety principle at stake.
In an opposition white paper published in March, the association argued that the override limits would interfere with normal crane operations, and could cause safety problems. Summing up recently, Bill Stramer, Link-Belt vice-president, said: “On a fundamental basis, EN 13000 says that the LMI is not an operator aid, it is the operator. Our philosophy is, it is an operator aid. The operator is the operator.” Stramer was speaking at the April 2008 SC&RA annual conference in Bonita Springs, Florida.
There, task force member Rob Weiss, vice-president of Cranes, Inc., said: “Fifteen percent means ‘we don’t want you using the crane.’ It might as well be zero. Every day anti-two blocks and load cells fail. You can’t shut the cranes down every time they do.”
The association met with manufacturers and a representative of ESTA in two meetings during ConExpo to explain its position, and argue against the changes for cranes sold in the USA. “This was the first time we had a frank exchange of views with the European community,” Weiss said.
“We told them our feelings, and how we do things,” he said. “EN 13000 is unsafe. It is handing control of the crane from the operator to the computer. It’s like the HAL computer controlling the spaceship in 2001, saying ‘I can’t do that, Dave’.”
He added: “We feel so strongly that this is unsafe, in violation of ANSI and OSHA rules, that we don’t want these cranes in our market.”
At ConExpo, it was revealed that Weiss and the task force got its wish: all the crane manufacturers agreed to leave North American cranes as they are at the moment. “Now it’s black and white. You can go with ANSI B30.5 or with EN 13000, but you can’t swap,” Weiss said in Florida. In the future, cranes sold to the USA would not be CE-marked.
Weiss said that the effect of this successful objection to the EN 13000 modifications would force manufacturers to make as many as four crane models: non-EN 13000 compliant cranes at 85% duty for the USA, non-EN 13000 compliant cranes at 75% duty for Australia, EN 13000-compliant cranes at 75% duty for Europeans, and EN 13000-compliant cranes at 85% duty.
The situation grows even more complicated for used cranes.
Committee member Doug Williams, president of steel erection and crane rental company Buckner Group, raised concerns about the resale value of US cranes in the world market. “If the rest of the world accepts this, and it becomes the norm, how will we sell the crane back out of the country?”
According to Weiss, older non-compliant European-made cranes would need to be modified. He explained that a crane returning to Europe would need to be sent back to the manufacturer or dealer, who would fit a new chip in the crane computer and change out the override key.
“This rule is effectively cutting us out of the European used crane market,” said task force member Frank Bardonaro, president of crane rental company AmQuip.
And despite the strong feelings of the task force members, no binding regulations exist in the USA to stop EN 13000-compliant cranes from coming to work. “Buyers should be smart enough and educated enough to buy a crane according to ANSI B30.5,” Weiss said, “but this is dictated by the customer.”
Although the cranes will continue to have the override key installed, they are likely to retain another feature of the EN 13000 revision: a data recorder, or so-called ‘black box’. This device records crane actions, and can in theory be accessed for accident investigation, for maintenance or troubleshooting breakdowns, according to task force member George Bragg, president of Bragg Crane Service. The SC&RA has not produced an official position on data loggers.
The conflict has reached a temporary standstill. The SC&RA’s actions proved too late to affect the standard, which is still expected to come into force in 2009, but it will not affect cranes sold into the USA.
The SC&RA is now deciding how to approach a planned amendment to the standard in 2009. “The 2009 amendment will allow us, if we force the issue, to change EN 13000,” Weiss said.
Although it remains unclear exactly how that might happen, the SC&RA has decided to stay involved. “We feel that there is a greater safety issue, and want to step forward to the European committee, and come to a workable solution for the worldwide industry,” Weiss said.
The group has already sent a letter of objection to the FEM, which will consider it in a meeting scheduled for May 5. In the meantime, the SC&RA appointed Weiss as its representative to meet with the International Crane Technical Liaison Committee to argue its case.
During the meeting, Weiss mentioned a possible compromise: moving a completely functional overload switch to the rear of the cabin out of reach of the operator.
