Making best practice in lifting normal practice

Incident-free lifting and handling with total reliability and minimal downtime is a fundamental aspect operational efficiency in industrial plants. But safety must be paramount in any lifting operation. Individual or corporate ignorance can have severe consequences: accidents, visits from health and safety inspectors, compensation payouts and, ultimately, prosecution and punishment. This must be clearly understood not only by those who operate the equipment or supervise lifts but also those who hold responsibility at managerial and director level.

Failures are entirely avoidable provided everyone in the chain of responsibility performs their role and understands that lifting equipment in industrial plants has to be looked after. Regular inspection of the structure of lifting equipment must be a focus for planned maintenance programmes.

Knowing your legal responsibilities

It is vital that duty holders associated with industrial plants are aware of all their legal responsibilities. The duty holder Is the person who is responsible for the lifting equipment in service within their operation – usually an employer or self-employed person, facility owner, person in charge of the equipment or a hire company. 

If they do not possess the necessary skills or knowledge required, they may delegate to qualified personnel or organisations. This does not absolve them of responsibility; it simply changes the nature of their accountability. 

The duty holder must ensure that those undertaking the tasks are suitably qualified, experienced, trained and equipped – in short, competent for their task. This means ensuring that employees and sub contractors undertaking the task are assessed, properly trained and provided with the necessary equipment for their role. For external organisations, the duty holder must have procedures in place for vetting their competency. 

Recognising best practice

In addition, duty holders should recognise what best practice looks like so they can make it normal practice. A good first step would be to take the Lifting Equipment End User Guidance course, which has been created by LEEA to educate company directors, senior managers and responsible persons in any end user markets where lifting equipment is used, and to provide an essential insight to general legal responsibilities for lifting equipment for duty holders.

A further simple step for companies seeking to mitigate risk associated with lifting in industrial plants is to look for the LEEA logo when seeking a lifting service provider to procure inspections, equipment or training. The logo shows that the provider is a member of the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association. Established across the globe, LEEA is the respected and authoritative representative body for its members who work in every aspect of the lifting industry, from design, manufacture, refurbishment and repair, through to the hire, maintenance and use of lifting equipment.

To become an Association member, the provider will have undergone a rigorous auditing process to uphold LEEA’s 'gold standard' and provide customers with the assurance of excellence and compliance to standards and legislation.

LEEA’s Audit process provides reassurance to the many tens of thousands of duty holders – often with little personal knowledge of the subject – who bear responsibility for the safe design, maintenance and operation of the lifting equipment and services their firm buys, hires or contracts in. Using audited LEEA members gives duty holders a guarantee that those aspects of their responsibilities will be faithfully, professionally and lawfully discharged.

Rigorous audit ensures excellence

A brief run through the key areas we look at when conducting a LEEA audit on a company, without going through an exhaustive list, will give end users an idea of the comprehensive adherence to quality represented by the LEEA logo. 

Does the organisation structure of the member company identify key personnel and are they trained in the operation's scope of work? Members are required to demonstrate that they maintain training records for their employees and that they are practically and theoretically competent. If using a subcontractor – how are its competencies verified? Does the member have the correct reference material in place – either on hand or available through its technical department? Is this information being shared with its employees?

Modern legislation places an emphasis on manufacturer’s information and instructions for safe use – does the member own this information? With many products covered by national, European or international standards, members will need to refer to these documents and must hold, or have ready access to, those standards covering the normal scope of work.

Having documentation to hand 

A member should also hold copies of current legislation applicable to its company, together with approved codes of practice and guidance documents. What test and verification equipment  – such as test beds, test weights, load links, verniers, etc – are held? How are these items verified and does the member have a current in-date calibration certificate to show that the equipment is being calibrated to the correct standard?

Being a legal document, does the member's Report of Thorough Examination comply, as it must, by containing all the relevant information? If the member is manufacturing or assembling lifting equipment, does its Certificate of Conformance contain all the information required? 

Who owns or has the ability to compile a member company’s technical file before its equipment is placed on the market or produced upon request? We check that the technical file contains all the relevant information: reference to standards, certificates of tests, design calculations and drawings, certificates of conformity and incorporation, manufacturers’ instructions, etc.

Is the member receiving and issuing the correct documentation for factored goods – ie, goods bought in to sell on? LEEA’s stance continues to be that members should issue the original Certificate of Conformance along with instructions for safe use when selling on. 

Does the member hire equipment out? If so it must be able to show its documentation trail, which should begin at Goods in and go all the way through to Goods Out. 

Moving on to examination facilities, are they clean and tidy? Is there suitable work area segregation to avoid confusion in identifying items? Is the quarantine area marked up, clean and is it being used correctly?

As this brief outline demonstrates, the Audit does not just provide a snapshot of compliance and competence at a moment in time. In fact it provides a development mechanism that ensures that each and every LEEA member rapidly achieves, and maintains, the highest international standards. So a LEEA Audit is not only a valuable feature of LEEA membership, it is a badge of excellence for end users of lifting gear.

Free guidance for best practice

Given that lifting is a common practice around the world and making the safe use of lifting equipment is such an important matter for many, LEEA has made its Code of Practice for the Safe Use of Lifting Equipment (COPSULE), widely available to download free in PDF as well as a searchable, interactive version. 

The COPSULE offers a regularly updated state of the art guide enabling lifting equipment users all over the globe and across different industries to meet legislative requirements. Covering a range of lifting machines, supporting structures and lifting accessories, it gives comprehensive guidance on safe lifting practice, authoritative information written by impartial industry experts using up to date industry practice and globally applicable guidance.

Based on the highest levels of safety legislation, standards and industry practice – which collectively address all health and safety issues – the code meets the minimum safety requirements globally and is an essential source of information for everyone involved in lifting. 

LEEA strives to promote enhanced standards for lifting worldwide. By making our Code of Practice freely available to non-members as well as members, we hope that more end users, including, industrial plant operators, will be able to access it so that eventually best practice becomes normal practice. 

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