TRAINING
of these are helps, and are brilliant; but at the end of the day, people still need the training to know about the crane that they’re working on, no matter how many bells and whistles it has. They need to know the features of that crane, and how they work and what to do if they stop working. If you have an anti-sway system, you have to know which buttons turn it on and off. We have cranes now with machine user interfaces on them. You sit in a chair behind the television screen and you operate it from there. It is very different from the old days of a cab with levers, set on the bridge of the crane up near the roof. Instead, you have CCTV cameras, often half a dozen of them or more, and you know the computer will talk to you. It will tell you how much load there is in the grab, it will tell you where the grab is, it will give you all the information, the angles, the heights. It will tell you everything. It will tell you if certain sections of the warehouse need loads to be fed to them. And unless you understand what information it is telling you, you are not capable of doing that job. It is not very different to driving a fancy car. The warning lights may come on but you as the driver have to know how to react to them. You do actually have to know what you are doing.” The LEEA (Lifting Equipment Engineers Association) has its own training academy based in Huntingdon. Training can also be delivered at client’s workplaces or online.
Courses range from a six-hour online elementary ‘Introduction to Lifting’ course via a three day online or instructor-led foundation course to diplomas for professionals overseeing the testing, inspection and maintenance of lifting equipment. Diplomas are available for manual lifting machines, powered lifting machines, bridge and gantry cranes and several other categories as well. LEEA also have an Accredited Training Scheme (ATS) in which LEEA member companies who offer training are audited on their course materials, trainers and facilities. There are dozens of companies, spread worldwide, with hundreds of courses covered between them: appointed persons, advanced rigging, counterbalanced floor crane, management of lifting and slinging – to name just a few. Training is generally to international standards. North American member companies offer training to North American standards – crane assembly/disassembly director and master rigger courses are just two examples. Carl Stahl Evita, headquartered in Rotherham, is one such LEEA member company. They supply lifting equipment and custom-engineered architecture and also offer training programmes. Isaac Robinson is their head of marketing. What three things does he most emphasise to trainees to ensure safety? “Obviously you have always got to do your
pre-checks,” he says. “You have got to make sure that your equipment is always in working condition and is always maintained. The number one, the biggest cause of accidents in my view, is just lack of concentration – which can in turn translate to a lack of knowledge. People tend to be overconfident in themselves, and that sort of overconfidence can make them a little too ambitious in what they are trying to achieve. But both of those come down to lack of training.
“I think when you are not properly trained on something it is very hard to understand the due diligence that you have to maintain. If you do not have that knowledge behind you, then you cannot know how to operate something professionally and accurately. So those would be my three key points: carry out pre-checks; concentrate at all times; and make sure you have the training to know what you are doing.” Does the recent advance in digital tech
help here? Things like sway control and anti-collision systems are becoming standard. “These things absolutely help, but they are not a silver bullet. They do not take away from the need to pay attention and to concentrate and to know what you are doing. Because, often, it is very heavy equipment that we’re working with, and even in the most safe-looking environments any incident can be costly and can be deadly,” explains Robinson.
Carl Stahl Evita also provides practical hands-on training to boost the learning experience. 24 | November 2025 |
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