The general guidance we give is to consider whether the lifting point is an integral part of the load, or detachable. Many loads designed to be regularly lifted will have specific lifting points. Indeed the European Machinery Directive has an essential health and safety requirement that machinery, and each of its component parts, must be capable of being handled safely and that where the weight, size or shape prevents it being done by hand, there is the facility to attach lifting equipment. (See Annex 1 section 1.1.5). Of course not every load is a machine, but this requirement illustrates the modern approach of designing out problems wherever possible.
Consider the top half of a large gearbox. It will have to be handled during assembly and may need to be removed from time to time during its life for maintenance purposes. If it is cast or fabricated with integral lifting points, they are part of the load. However if threaded holes are provided, into which eyebolts or other lifting attachments are screwed, then those eyebolts or attachments are regarded as lifting accessories.
Sometimes the dividing line is not so obvious. A recent enquiry concerned the handling of injection moulding tools which are in two matched parts. The two parts are held together during transport and storage by a bar fixed to each part with an Allen screw. To facilitate lifting, an eyebolt was screwed into the bar. The eyebolt is clearly a lifting accessory but what about the bar and Allen screws? They do have the function of keeping the two parts of the tool together for storage and protection but they are clearly not part of the tool. In my view, they were primarily there to facilitate lifting and, as such, the assembly of eyebolt, bar and Allen screws is a lifting accessory and should be designed, verified and documented as such.
Another regular enquiry centres on what constitutes the load, what constitutes the lifting equipment, and where the dividing line is between them. Many loads are in some kind of container, which can be anything from a simple cardboard box to an ISO freight container. In all cases, the general rule is that the container is part of the load, not part of the lifting equipment.
This may seem obvious for packing materials such as a cardboard box which is disposed of once the load arrives at its destination, but rather less logical for one which is used over and over again. After all, you might say, if the container falls apart, the consequences are likely to be just as bad as if the lifting equipment fails. True, but the modern approach to safety is risk based. If the risk is there, it should be addressed. In that context, it hardly matters what the item is called. The distinction between load and lifting equipment doesn’t significantly affect what you do to control the risk – it is more about the formality of the inspection regime.
The UK regulations (LOLER) and approved code of practice (ACoP) specifically deal with the integrity of the load. Regulation 8 deals with organisation of lifting operations. An important part of that is ensuring the lifting accessories are suitable and compatible with the load and that the load will not disintegrate whilst being lifted. (See ACoP paragraphs 244 and 245).
A good example of a containerised load with integral lifting points is a waste skip which has four trunnions to facilitate lifting. The waste in the skip and the skip itself, complete with its integral trunnions, are all regarded as part of the load. The lifting equipment therefore begins with the links and chains which connect to the trunnions.
This brings us to another question: where vehicle mounted lifting equipment ends. The question applies to skip lorries and also lorry loaders and a variety of other slewing jibs and lifting machines fixed to road going vehicles. The reason it arises is simply that lifting engineers are asked to repair, test or examine such equipment but have little or no expertise about the vehicles they are fixed to.
The general guidance we give is that any part of the vehicle which affects the safety of the lifting equipment should be regarded as being part of the lifting equipment. Usually this is restricted to certain structural elements of the vehicle. With the exception of recovery vehicles and true mobile cranes, most, if not all, such vehicles are stationery during the lifting operation and are required to have stabilisers deployed. Thus, for example, whilst the condition of the brakes on a skip lorry may be a vital aspect of its road going safety, they do not affect its safety as a lifting machine. However the condition of certain parts of the vehicle chassis will.
Another important part of the general guidance we give when answering many of these ‘grey area’ queries is to be very clear about what, as a lifting engineer, you are undertaking to do. With vehicle mounted equipment of this type, there are two distinct areas of expertise, the lifting equipment and the vehicle. It requires both to assess the safety of the whole. Such expertise is not necessarily vested in one person or even one organisation.
The above are a small selection of issues which have arisen at least once in the past month and are in some way connected. However there is one other matter which has arisen again. It is a matter I feel strongly about and comes under the heading of false economy.
From time to time there is an initiative to write a standard for so called ‘one trip’ textile webbing slings. The whole objective of a one trip sling is to allow a cheaper product by reducing the factor of safety. The argument is that it doesn’t need to have an allowance for deterioration due to wear. This may be true, but consider how such slings are used and what attributes they need for that use.
One trip slings are used to pre-sling cargo and remain with the cargo until it reaches its destination. This might involve many stages. One example we know of involved steel sections that were handled within the mill, loaded onto lorries and shipped, then completed their journey by road to a stockholder where they were unloaded into storage.
Whilst textile webbing has many attributes as a material from which to manufacture lifting slings, it is susceptible to damage by cutting. In a multi-stage journey there are many opportunities for careless handling by persons who will not be involved in the next stage of lifting, for the sling to be trapped between bundles of cargo, and for cargo to accidentally shift.
The risk of damage is, if anything, greater than in a normal lifting operation. However, whereas in a normal lifting operation the sling can easily be checked between each lift, that is not true of a ‘one trip’ application. In the later stages of the trip, the person lifting the cargo may unwittingly do so with a damaged sling. This is entirely foreseeable and, to control the risk, the sling should preferably have a higher factor of safety, not lower.
Of course, completing the trip safely is not always the end of the matter. In the example given above, the slings continued in use within the steel stockholder’s warehouse. Fortunately they were spotted by a knowledgeable outsider and withdrawn from service. But for that they may have remained available until an accident happened. The Harmonised European Standard, EN 1492-1, specifies a minimum factor of safety of 7. That may seem high but it is there for good technical reasons.
Textile webbing slings are inherently one of the most cost effective slings and pre-slinging cargo minimises handling costs. To try and save a few cents more by reducing the factor of safety is surely a false economy.
