The most important elements in crane safety we are facing in the Middle East are: Lack of experienced operators; Communications barrier between different nationalities; Lack of maintenance; Inspection, auditing and third party certification; Rigging studies; Risk assessments; Effective supervision; Ground bearing.
In order to manage the safety of the use of cranes in our projects we have adopted the most advanced health, safety and environment management system (HSEMS) pertaining to lifting equipment, therefore we always ensure that the following principles are met (as it has been identified that these are the main causes of crane accidents).
Only trained, certified, competent operators are hired to operate each crane as per their classification. Only certified riggers including competent supervisors are allowed to get involved in cranes operations.
A very strict maintenance program is being implemented by our PMV department. Inspections and certification are carried out to each crane, including lifting tackles, by a third party.
Colour coding for all lifting gear is in place. All critical lifts are managed by rigging studies prepared and approved by our central rigging department. All of our activities are executed after risk assessments are done for each and every lifting operation. Ground is always checked for levelling and compaction, and soil bearing pressure tests are conducted for critical lifts.
To ensure that our program is effective we conduct internal audits as well as third party audits. All incidents are reported and investigated and discussed in our lessons learned committee.
