At Crane Tech, we constantly teach about the need for safety in the workplace, whether it is through a training program, providing an educational tip through a blog post,  or reviewing incidents with an outside perspective.  We talk about how proper training can help not only make your job site safer, but can help employees be able to work reliably. Meaning that they will have the knowledge and experience to perform safely and efficiently in routine, as well as extreme or unexpected conditions.

From time to time we come across some great content that reflects our sentiments exactly, and in this case, it comes from the latest Tailgate Safety Topic from Incident Prevention, a magazine for utility safety and operations professionals.

The post Safety vs. Productivity reviews three scenarios where near (more…)

We were recently asked about Refresher Training, if there were any OSHA standards regarding this and how often we recommend refresher training.

To our knowledge there is no OSHA standard outlining re-fresher training for material handling occupations (Qualified Riggers, Signal Persons, Crane Operators, etc.) other than one for forklift operators. In this standard, OSHA states each forklift operator’s performance must be evaluated at least once every three years.

So if there is no federal OSHA standard, then what do we recommend? (more…)

A month ago our Hand-Me-Down Rigging post discussed the need for actual training versus having riggers being taught by their co-workers. As part of that article, we invited readers to take a 5-question rigging quiz. This simple quiz was adapted from Crane Tech’s Qualified Rigger Level 1 curriculum with questions that we consider every rigger should be able to answer fairly easily.

By March 7^th, there were 352 responses and we extracted the data for analysis. Imagine our surprise when we found only 59 individuals (17%) did not (more…)

We are sure every reader could give an example of how either themselves, or someone they know, has had a near miss. It might even be said, “that person had luck on their side.” But who wants to rely on luck or divine intervention when we’re talking about safety?

There is more to being safe on the job than just being lucky. In all reality, safety has nothing to do with luck.  Safety happens though a series of educated decisions and wise choices. (more…)

Crane Tech is happy to announce that we have a new Derek! No, it’s not a Digger Derrick, but Derek Thomas, our new instructor.  Derek comes to us as an 22-year crane operator with 33 years of rigging experience, including 10 years of specialized rigging while serving in the U.S. Army Special Operations division. He holds NCCCO certifications in Lattice Boom Crawler and Swing-Cab Telescopic Boom cranes.

To get to know Derrick better, our marketing manager sat down with him and asked some questions.

What caused you to go into operating as a career? (more…)