ESTA INTERVIEW Ӏ SAFETY AND TRAINING
LIEBHERR'S ANDY CLAYPOLE ON RISING DEMAND FOR CRANE OPERATOR COURSES
A properly-trained crane operator is a safe crane operator. Andy Claypole, Training Manager at Liebherr Training Services (a fully- accredited CPCS training centre in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, UK) spoke to Cranes Today editor Christian Shelton at the Vertikal Days show earlier this year about how demand for training has dramatically increased. "We train only for the lifting industry," Claypole said. "And the big thing that's changed of late is the funding that is available for companies through the CPCS, the Construction Plant Competence Scheme. Just now they can get 70% funding for training courses. If a company sends one of its operators on a Slinger or Mobile Crane course, if they book it through the Construction Industry Training Board, CITB, they can get a 70% grant for it. That is a massive saving, and they are up-skilling their staff. "It has led to many more people coming into the industry. There has been a massive, massive increase. There is a big shortage of operators within the industry, which is causing problems for manpower, strains on people's working hours and things like this, because people aren't coming into the industry as they used to. There are now a lot more things available to the younger generation, and what they want to do is not necessarily crane operating. "But, thanks to that increase in numbers we are now running crane
courses back-to-back, and they are fully booked for the rest of the year. That is an issue in itself, because there are only a few providers in the country that run training courses, and so of course they are running into problems of availability of places, just trying to get applicants through. "Everybody wants something, and they want it quickly. At the
moment you might have to wait till next year for a place, which is something people don't necessarily want to hear. I don't know of an easy solution to this. You could say 'make more training centres' or 'run more courses' but I think it is a problem that's been happening for a lot of years and it has not been addressed. People just haven't been coming into the industry. There are lots of issues, lots of people have lots of different ideas and solutions, but there are many different problems contributing to it. But there is no one thing that will solve it. It's not an easy fix. "But if a young person is looking to become a mobile crane
for a lift: where the risks are, what you should do to minimise them. We refer readers to existing guidelines, because we don’t want to be just wasting paper by writing out all those rules again.
What guidance does the document give regarding training? We have made some remarks about the people who perform the lift, their roles and professional competence and training frameworks. Of course, there is the operator of the crane, and
the supervisor and the Appointed Person, and there are also the riggers and the signal person; and all of these need to be trained in one way or another. We set out what their training courses should have included. ESTA has initiated the
development of a ‘mobile crane operator training’ course (ECOL) that can be considered as a minimum standard for crane operators, and we refer to that because we would like it to be more widely used.
Germany is one country that does not use it. The UK is another. I think that if that if it were to be more universal it would be a good improvement of operator skills throughout Europe.
Sadly many companies are
short-sighted: they will happily spend three million euros on a crane but think €500 on training an operator is a waste of money. There are too many companies
– sometimes large ones - that talk about safety but that do not follow though.
CRANES TODAY 41
operator one piece of advice that I would give them is to go a crane firm and do the hard work. Do the labouring, do the swinging, do working in the yards... and offer to do them. People want to be fast tracked, they want to be driving the big cranes, but you have to work up to that. You' have to understand the cranes, you have got to gain that knowledge, you have to understand what the industry is before you get to that stage. It can be very long with unsociable hours. You have to accept
those things. And if you can't accept them then the crane industry may not be for you. Also, there are plenty of crane firms that don't do the unsocial hours; whereas with the bigger firms you have to do the hours. And the bigger the crane, the more the hours you do. So I would say start at the bottom. Don't expect to be fast tracked. Don't expect to be driving a thousand-tonne crane within three years of starting your career as a slinger in the yard. Instead, help out in any way that you can and show your worth that way. And then that will get you into the industry, and perhaps eventually to the top. The full video interview with Andy Claypole at Vertikal Days can be seen here:
https://shorturl.at/YMAQV
Andy Claypole, training manager at Liebherr Training Services
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