【HaiChuan Safety Discussion】Aphobia: How to manage so many cranes at a construction site

Each person should take care of their own area of responsibility. Your role is to oversee the lifting plans, to check whether the items to be lifted and the cranes are compatible with each other and whether they are within the crane’s rated lifting capacity. You also need to conduct daily inspections on site. Your project team can only supervise the construction workers; moreover, when it comes to safety tasks, assigning them all to your team means that no matter how hard you work, you won’t be able to handle everything, and it will only end up being pointless

On large-scale projects, the project is broken down into various work packages, with each contractor having its own installation tasks. This is especially true when it comes to lifting heavy objects weighing over 80 tons. Thus, everyone does their best – there are cranes with capacities of 300 tons, 400 tons, 500 tons, 600 tons, 800 tons, 1000 tons, 1250 tons, 1300 tons, 2000 tons, and 4000 tons. As long as they complete their own tasks, it doesn’t matter because someone else is paying for it. Of course, the costs associated with operating the crane and the fees for its use are all borne by the owner in the end. But if the owner plans carefully when defining the scope of the bidding, by grouping large equipment weighing over 80 tons together in a \"large-scale lifting package\" and assigning a separate contractor to handle the lifting of such equipment throughout the site, then it might be possible to use only a few cranes (for example, one each with a capacity of 400 tons, 1000 tons, and 2000 tons) to carry out all the lifting tasks. This would not only save money but also allow for better coordination of the operations, which is certainly advantageous.

“The practice of using \"large-scale lifting packages\" has been adopted internationally for a long time; Sinopec Engineering Group uses them quite frequently in China, while other companies mostly work independently, moving from one location to another with each project. This not only leads to the repeated purchase of cranes but also results in waste of resources.

This method is great! Is there an issue of interests in fighting on one’s own?

It’s mainly a matter of interests – making more money from lifting heavy objects. The key issue is that property owners end up spending a lot of unnecessary money on this, which increases construction costs and represents a huge waste for society as a whole.

Large-item lifting packages are designed for heavy objects; there are specialized agencies for this purpose. The photo shown here depicts the management of regular lifting operations

Will you issue a lifting operation permit? ? ? ?

Sinopec also recently integrated its shipping companies; originally, each company had its own lifting company

Sinopec originally had the strongest lifting capacity among its companies, with Company 10 being responsible for lifting the super-large equipment used in various projects. In 2015, building on the foundation of those ten companies, other firms specializing in lifting and transportation were integrated to form a highly professional loading company that took on the responsibility of transporting and lifting heavy items for various projects, pursuing a path of specialization.

Do you think it’s possible to drive it over? There are specific construction plans and lifting plans in place during the construction process, so it may not be necessary to do so. Every construction team needs to follow these procedures; basically, no invoices will be issued in such cases