The UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) is aiming to finish development of a database of all offshore pedestal cranes in the UK sector of the North Sea in December. The database, which covers more than 600 cranes, will include records of incidents going back to 1992 and will be used to improve safety monitoring by the HSE’s Offshore Division.
The database, called OCTAP (offshore crane technical assessment package) holds information about the organisation operating the crane – the ‘duty holder’ – crane technical data, maintenance history, incident reports, safety notices and safety alerts.
The database will also be able ‘to give incident trend history patterns due to a change in the duty holder or a change in policy of the duty holder,’ according to an HSE spokesman.
‘This comprehensive history enables HSE inspectors to arrange more meaningful and targeted offshore inspections and also assists in building up an audit programme under the general inspection topic which will assess duty holder compliance with the Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER),’ according to a document posted on the HSE’s Offshore Research Focus web site.
A total of 45 duty holders have contributed to the database, which was compiled by outside contractor A1 Consultants 1995 Ltd.
The database will be made available to duty holders by April 2004.
