FEATURE
The wearing of harnesses now is mandatory, you can’t be working without adequate training. The machines have to be very highly maintained to good standards, there is legislation that every six months they must be inspected. There is now much more emphasis on equipment safety which is a very good thing for the industry and that drives some of the innovation in the product as well.
Are access platforms seasonal products? Not as much as you might think. Depending on weather conditions, the winter months can have a dramatic effect on the utilisation of fleets, but in recent years we don’t seem to have had many very harsh winters, so the rental companies seem to be reasonably busy throughout those months as well.
What would you recommend for a customer to bear in mind when they’re buying access platforms? First of all, they should only buy from a reputable manufacturer. Everything has to be CE compliant in our marketplace and from a reputable source.
Another thing to keep in mind is the reliability and support for those products. They can sometimes be quite technical and are obviously large investments, so these things can’t afford to be off road and unproductive for any period of time.
Support both infield and technical support for the product is critical at the moment, especially for some of the more sophisticated machines such as the Hinowa spiders, for example. They come in with remote diagnostics thanks to camera systems and telemetry systems as well. If there is a problem onsite then we can interrogate the machines remotely and see exactly what is wrong.
The key piece of legislation for working at height is the Working At Height Regulations 2005, which can be found in full at:
www.legislation.gov.uk/ uksi/2005/735/contents/made
This covers a range of activities including: • the use of a ladder or stepladder; • work on a flat, scaffold or mobile elevated platform (MEWP); • work on the back or top of a lorry; • work in areas where someone can fall from an edge, through an opening, or through a fragile surface;
• work at ground level close to an opening, hole in the ground or excavation that someone could fall into.
In fact, smart technology as a whole is a great added source of value for access products. It can be seen to be more complex, so there is a little bit more expertise needed on the customer’s part but, having established that, it does mean the hire companies see some very good rates of return on that type of equipment. It’s back to providing a solution to a problem for a customer and they’re prepared to pay for that.
But it does all depend on the reliability of the equipment and it does have to be very well supported.
SCAN THE CODE to see the Hinowa Lightlift 33.17 Performance IIIS spider platform in action
The bi-energy Hinowa Lightlift 33.17 Performance IIIS spider platform. 23
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