Delegates gained a vital insight on business opportunities in markets across Asia and Australasia with all of the latest and best in safe lifting operations from the world’s leading crane experts. There was widespread good intent.
But even in a microcosmic form, Cranes Asia 2009 demonstrated how far the industry has got to go, not only in the state of the marketplace, but in its levels of safe practice and concern for human life.
Yet again, in our safety section, presentations were quantified with accident and death figures. That’s without talking about the many other crane-related incidents and near-misses that go undocumented.
As I said in my chairperson’s closing remarks, we have a great opportunity to hold ourselves accountable. There’s no better yardstick to mark progress than an inaugural event, show or conference. When people come back next time—we hope to announce dates of Cranes Asia 2010 soon—how much progress has been made? How well did we absorb the messages from the last conference? How did we implement them in our day-to-day work?
In his presentation on ‘working at height: safe access and egress on cranes’, Mick Hoyle, a cranes, rigging and lifting consultant working with Exxon-Mobil, told manufacturers present that designing cranes without safe access/egress is “no longer acceptable”.
Yes, but manufacturers make cranes to customers’ specifications and to prevailing local standards, said Manitowoc’s Gilles Martin, executive vice president, Asia-Pacific; and has Cranes Today done enough to raise awareness, challenged Alex Mullins, of event partner Al Jaber Heavy Lift.
The point is, we can (and should) all do more to improve safety levels within the industry.
Hopefully delegates and speakers alike report on the progress that has been made since the first Middle East Cranes, when we descend on Dubai for our fourth conference at the Shangri-La Hotel on the Sheikh Zayed Road in the emirate,
23-24 February. How times have changed there since the inaugural MEC in 2007.
