Crane Safety 2006

Crane Safety & Management 2006 was organised with official media partners Cranes Today and Hoist magazines, and was supported by major UK-based organisations Construction Equipment Association, LEEA (Lifting Equipment Engineers’ Association), and the Construction Plant-Hire Association.

The morning plenary sessions included a talk from LEEA chief executive Derrick Bailes on the causes of rigging accidents. He highlighted case study examples and explained how to forsee likely problems, avoid serious accidents and boost productivity.

Morning sessions were followed by break-out panel sessions and workshops in the afternoon, where the leading players in the factory crane industry could get together, while the tower crane and mobile crane representatives did the same. On the opening day of the conference, the afternoon factory crane session was opened by Hoist editor Richard Howes, who welcomed delegates and introduced a series of presentations.

"It was exciting to see so many of the industry's key players supporting the magazine's crane safety initiative," said Howes. "It proved to me the potential of the Crane Safety & Management conference and the industry's belief in its long-term goals."

He added: "The industry and Hoist magazine must continue to work together to ensure that all the great ideas and notions aired during the conference are put into practice so that next year we can report on the progress that is being made."

The opening presentation was by Ilkka Riikonen, senior chief engineer, KCI Konecranes, who explored how the EN 13001 and prEN 15011 will affect hoist manufacturers and crane builders.

In his talk he outlined the new classification system, the new limit state methods, how EN 13001 breaks down and how prEN 15011 is starting to take shape.

Dr Joachim Biewald, Demag Cranes & Components project leader and member of the FEM Bridge and Gantry Cranes Working Group, Germany was next up. He explained the electrical safety requirements for cranes and hoists.

Dr Biewald outlined how the revision of IEC 60204-32 deals with changes in the relevant products such as variable-speed drives and remote controls, and how continuous improvement in the basic standard IEC 60204-1 is influencing the revision of part 32.

Next up was Alfred Beer of certification body Tuev Sued Rail, Germany who outlined the risk analyses of overhead cranes and explained how they have become more complicated in recent years because of sophisticated electronic control systems. Beer showed a penguin skating across the ice before falling flat on its face to demonstrate what can go wrong, even if we are completely at ease with the environment in which we are working.

The opening afternoon concluded with a panel session about crane operator training and certification, including how the minimum standards for overhead crane operators are rising.

The session was led by Morris Material Handling Ltd training manager Bernard Grantham. The Morris Institute offers specific training in all areas of crane operation, material handling, maintenance and inspection, automated warehousing, health and safety topics and interpersonal skills development programmes.

Grantham was joined by Peter Westerdahl, KranTek-SQR, Sweden, a representative of the ISO crane operation and maintenance subcommittee (ISO TC96 SC5) since November 2003, and Hans Christian Elmholt, managing director of Lifting and Safety International, Norway.

Delegates and exhibitors returned the following day for further plenary sessions before the factory crane members enjoyed a workshop on crane drive safety after lunch - hosted by Schneider Electric.

With their advance motion control capabilities, variable-frequency drive systems can offer greater safety to factory cranes. In this technical session, Javier Gonzalezs Lombardia covered key safety features of computer-controlled drives and other electronic controls in general, and examined some maintenance issues.

The workshop included application case studies, live equipment demonstrations and a general question-and-answer session.

• All presentations from Crane Safety 2006 can be downloaded from: www.wilmingtonconferences.com/ cranes2006.