SAFETY AND TRAINING Ӏ FEATURE
SENSE PREVAILS: CRANE-MAKERS CAN STILL USE CE CONFORMITY OF SAFETY
Safety is safety, irrespective of politics. Brexit ought not, one imagines, to have impacted that statement. The CE (Conformité Européenne) mark is used throughout the EU to certify that a wide range of items – everything from electrical goods to toys, even construction materials and lifting equipment – meet safety standards. Upon leaving the EU, in an attempt to separate the UK’s internal market from the European market, the UK government announced it would phase out CE marks for products marketed in Great Britain and replace them with an equivalent 'UKCA' mark. It set dates for the change – initially the fi rst of January 2022 - which, under pressure from
manufacturers’ bodies, it postponed, several times, to eventually settle on 31 December 2024 as a fi nal deadline. That would have marked a cliff-edge moment for manufacturers by which time they would have had to comply; and since the UKCA mark would have been recognised in the UK but nowhere else on the planet, makers who wished to export their products would have had to implement two different sets of regulations: the UKCA one for the home market; the CE one for exports. This would have added hugely to their regulatory burden. Overseas crane-makers would presumably also have had to UKCA-certify their products in order to sell them in Britain. One wonders how many of them would have felt the effort worthwhile? The Lifting Equipment Engineers Association, LEEA, was one of the many bodies opposing the change. Finally, in August 2023, the
government announced a U-turn: the CE mark would continue to be recognised in the UK into the indefi nite future. It was not a complete abandonment of the UKCA mark; manufacturers may still use it if they wish to. But it is far from clear why any
manufacturer would choose a safety-conformity assessment that is recognised only in the UK over one that has UK and Europe-wide validity. As Ross Moloney, CEO of the LEEA said at the time, “LEEA has been actively engaged in raising issues concerning UKCA marking and the
diffi culties it presents to the lifting industry in discussions with UK Government and is pleased to see that a sensible approach is being adopted that will allow businesses to adjust.”
“With work levels being so high at the moment, crane owners are clearly recognising the importance of ensuring maximum uptime and extracting the most efficient performance from their cranes,” said Marco Zucchet, director of sales, after-sales, and marketing at Manitowoc in Singapore. “Since the world began opening up again after Covid our training centre has already proved to be a huge success, with many dealers and customers either flying in technicians from across Asia to attend these courses or signing them up for virtual participation. “The verdict of those technicians has been exceptionally favourable, with many appreciating the chance to get to grips with new or unfamiliar technologies in a much more relaxed environment than on- the-job learning usually allows. "For the more experienced technicians their time with us also acted as a useful refresher course, ensuring they hadn’t slipped into incorrect or inefficient ways of working, while offering the chance to exchange ideas as part of our Voice of the Customer process.”
42 CRANES TODAY To find out more about
training available from Manitowoc visit
www.manitowoc.com/ support/training . Training, of course, is not a once-only procedure. On-the-job appraisal hugely helps the newly- qualified. Technology advances call for new skills and understandings; even experienced operators need
refresher courses. In the officialese language of British Standard 7121- 1:2016, Code of Practice for Safe Use of Cranes, “Formal refresher training and re-assessment might... be considered appropriate.” The underlying message is
clear: training, like safety, is something that cannot be neglected at any stage of a career.
Christoph Kleiner (left), head of sales at Liebherr-Werk Ehingen, accepts the 2023 ESTA 'Training' Award from ESTA director Ton Klijn
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