Lifting permit to work:

About lifting

Crane and site lifts enable construction and industrial projects to head into the sky. Its pretty miraculous what cranes have been able to (and continue to) facilitate for buildings and societies.

At the other end of the spectrum, lifts by their very nature carry a number of risks and hazards inherent in lifting massively heavy materials a number of stories and potentially hundreds of meters into the air. There have been a number of accidents and incidents in past years relating to crane operation, which stem mostly from:

• Crane erection/dismantle and climbing.
• In operation risks.
• Operation error.
• Weather.

Together, these elements create an environment which has the potential for massive damage, serious injury and even death. And the environment in which cranes can and do operate is greatly affected from day-to-day as well, with high winds and rain often delaying lifts.

What needs to be in your lifting permit to work?

There are two main purposes for your lifting permit - both of which need to be accounted for in the contents of your lifting permit.

Firstly, lifting permits are for safety record keeping and compliance. The penalties and repercussions of not complying with safety rules and regulations can be serve - not to mention that poor record keeping often costs companies hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in unfair claims which they don't have the evidence or proof to dispute.
For this reason, each and every one of your records should be appropriately designed, marked and stored for safe and comprehensive record keeping.

Every lifting permit should include a number of basic information items:

• Automated form number.
• Project and lift details.
• The work area where the lift will take place.
• The duration of the planned lift or lifts.
• The safe work method statement reference number (SWMS).
• The type of crane used.
• A brief description of the lift.
• A description of the load and load weight.

The next section of the form is a risk assessment, which ensures that all of the potential risks are understood and have been accounted for and mitigated to the best of everyone’s ability.
Part of this risk assessment is for the operators own processes and workflows, although research has proven they are pretty good in this realm: Statistics show operators are only responsible for 13% of accidents. The risk assessment is equally important for external factors and factors outside of the crane operator and dog men’s control.
The risk assessment checklist (for a general lift plan) focuses on identifying and controlling for:

• Tag lines.
• Electrical hazards.
• Ground conditions.
• Shallow underground services.
• Exclusion zones.

The dog man/rigger and crane operator will also declare and test their communication equipment. This lift permitting example is indicative of a normal general lift - with more serious and potentially dangerous lifts requiring additional permitting fields and requirements.