OCH magazine

Chris Gilfilen, of US Crane, Inc., gives his take on crane inspection and maintenance.

The issues involving crane inspection and preventative maintenance are very numerous and very complex.  The qualifications of inspectors and the frequency of inspections seem to be the most difficult ones to tackle.

I have been working in the overhead crane and hoist industry in some capacity for over 20 years.  This would surely qualify as experience and should also be a criteria for qualification to some degree.  But, as I'm sure you know, the number of "qualified inspectors" with far less experience (some as little as a two-day training class) are routinely asked to perform crane inspections.

Can such an inspection be sufficient?  Of course.  Is it likely to be?  Of course not.

All the years of experience that I have had has yet to expose me to all of the different hoist and crane configurations that are currently in use across the US and the world.  Further, my and most crane inspectors' exposure to many types of cranes is limited.

Much of the knowledge about the older crane technology has disappeared as that generation of designers has retired.   I can tell you that there are very few with a thorough knowledge of the old P&H static stepless controllers and even less with thorough knowledge of DC cranes.

I have found that some of the most qualified inspectors are the maintenance men who have spent the majority of their lives in the same factory with a particular set of cranes.  Unfortunately, many of these men have retired or soon will.  Many more are ladened with such a broad list of responsibilities that they simply do not have the time or resources to sufficiently attend to the cranes.

Who then will attend to these cranes?  The subcontracted crane inspector will be asked to do it.  Is it reasonable to think that even a seasoned crane technician could give just as thorough assessment of a crane's condition in one day as the person who sees this crane every day?  I don't think so.

In my opinion, the most important qualification of a crane inspector is the understanding that human lives are relying on your assessment.  This can be told but it cannot be taught.  This must be realized.  Hopefully it does not take an injury or a death to make this happen, but sadly this is often the case.

The next issue at hand is frequency of inspection.  I believe that the end user wants to ensure safety and compliance (not always in that order).  Unfortunately, both of these definitions are hazy at best.

Inspection intervals are determined by frequency of use.  This is where I think that standardization could be very useful.  All users of hoisting equipment should be required to perform an audit to determine usage.  This could be done in house or outsourced.  This should include frequency of lifts only.  A safety factor could be used to weight this number accordingly.  The percentage of full capacity consideration is useless in my opinion.  A 5 ton crane should be assessed as a 5 ton crane, not some percentage of a 5 ton crane.  After this audit is done, each unit would be assigned a value of 1-5:

1. One would be assigned to a crane that may not be used at all in a year.  This unit would be required prior to use.
2. Two would require an annual inspection.
3. Three would require a biannual inspection.
4. Four would require a quarterly inspection.
5. Five would require a monthly inspection.

A number over five with the safety factor calculated could require a weekly inspection.  This would not in any way supplement the required operator safety checks.  These must be stressed more and a checklist should be required to be filled out by the operator each shift that the unit is used.  Most companies require this for their forklifts.  This system is a very simple system and all it would take is an agreement of how many lifts determine a 1-5 value.

Standardization in the form of qualifications is something that I don't think will ever happen.  Standardization of the requirements for a thorough inspection is currently determined by the hoist manufacturer and should remain so.  More efforts could be made to present these requirements to the end user more clearly.

I hope these ideas will be useful in improving the safety in the hoisting industry.

Chris Gilfilen

US Crane, Inc.