Planning a Lift – Important Factors Designing a Lift Plan
Lifting operations can often put people at great risk of injury, and incur large costs when they go wrong, so before starting to set up your crane you must make sure you prepared or got the right lift plan. This article offers some guidance on how to get it right.
The lift (rigging) plan is an absolute necessity for a safe and well-executed lifting job. Here in Saudi Arabia, the construction industry especially in the field of Oil & Gas supervised by Aramco has recognized the importance and reinforced the industry, by generating the General Instruction Manual (G.I), also SPSP training center established to train riggers, and crane supervisors about the basics for the preparation of rigging plan: It is one step among others to promote the safety culture.
Of course, today there are several software packages available where rigging studies can be easily prepared and tailored precisely to the specific crane model being used on the job. There is no doubt that these programs are of great help to the industry.
However, you rely on them solely. A crane supervisor is to understand the lifting specifications for a particular job and select the crane(s) and the rigging equipment, then he/she must be able to prepare a simple rigging plan with a sheet of paper, a ruler, and a pencil.
Whilst it is true that a simple lifting job does not require a lifting plan, it is hard to say exactly what constitutes a ‘simple’ job. A small lift from a narrow position at a long radius can be just as complicated as a large lift at a short radius with no surrounding obstacles.
There are several lifts planning software available with a different scope of utilization like Liccon job planner and Liebherr crane planner specific for Liebherr cranes,3d lift plan, Kranexpert, Cranimax.
I use Autocad 2D however you need to prepare the crane blocks library first specific to the company’s crane fleet and I could double-check with the Liccon job planner if the crane used in
Liebherr for example and use some aid for calculation (Excel sheet with formulas to determine clearances).
This article might be helpful to introduce the requirements to prepare a proper lift plan for and set the crane in the correct position for people that want to increase the safety levels of operations.
Plans are nothing planning is everything maybe most of you have heard of this quote but why planning is so important in the lifting industry?
- Analyze the operation, identify the related risks to avoid the issues
- Effective details for the implementation of a step-by-step process
In short, a good plan combined with good equipment and qualified people is the key to a safe and effective lifting operation.
