SIR MOIR LOCKHEAD SAFETY AWARD
Selling safety is core to our
proposition. Our customers
come to us because we sell
ourselves as the safest and the best
in terms of standards and quality.
We have never not backed one of our
operatives when they have stopped
a job.
Quite recently, we were on a very
big job supporting a customer that
was using dozens of cranes. This job
required numerous subcontractors
to support it. And we found when
we got on there that, probably as a
combination of COVID and Brexit,
the typical competency levels and
depth of experience that we would
have expected to see among some of
the contractors was not there. I think
that is a real risk to our construction
sector at the moment. We ended
up doing additional added value
awareness training to some of the
less experienced people, and also
employed a number of extra people
on to the project to act as safety
supervisors to allow it to continue.
As a former military pilot, my own
culture was, if you are taking a ight,
you wouldn’t dream of sitting down in
the aircraft and starting the engine.
After we sit down, we have to go
through all of the checks. We wanted
to instil that culture into our people
at Ainscough. And we’ve done that;
a lot of it is through talking, through
engagement and through experience,
and by demonstrating that, by putting
processes in place, you’re protecting
yourself and your colleagues.
PETER GIBBS
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
AINSCOUGH CRANE HIRE
Our entire eet is from Liebherr,
and we do that because it’s a common
system of operation. It’s a very
strong safety message: our cranes
all work the same way. I used to y
a British helicopter and a French
helicopter. The rotors turn in the
opposite direction, so your hand
position was completely di erent
when you got into it. I don’t want
to underestimate the strength of
“Safety is about engaging your own
people with the ‘why’ rather than a ‘tell’”
the safety bene t that we get from
standardisation. In fact, when we
met with Liebherr some time ago, we
discovered that nearly 80% of the
safety enhancements on the latest
cranes have come from Ainscough.
Liebherr told us that unequivocally
Ainscough is the leading crane
company in the world for engineered
safety solutions.
For example, we had one incident
in which the crane boom was not
correctly lowered and settled. That
of course can create movement and
creates a hazard, which the operator
wouldn’t necessarily see when he is in
back in the cab. We determined that
if operators followed the Ainscough
set-up process, they would not make
this mistake. But we also realised that
if the mistake is made, the impact
could be extremely high. So we took
the view that the cost of putting a
pressure switch under the boom was
worth the reduction in risk. Now, if
the pressure switch is not pushed
down, you get an alarm.
Safety isn’t just about cranes or
crane operators. Safety is a cultural
thing; it’s about the entire business.
Everybody in this business has a key
part to play, in delivering, from start
to nish, a safe lifting solution. So the
MAS course, mandatory Ainscough
safety training, benchmarks all of
us. It’s about building awareness.
It’s about raising the bar on safety.
It’s about engaging your own people
with the ‘why’ rather than a ‘tell’. The
practical side of this is that safety
isn’t just about when you’re on the
road with a customer.
In fact, one of our earliest
challenges was that people would
come back and treat a depot like
home. And culturally you had that
problem when they came in the
depot, safety doesn’t count anymore.
We’ve changed that, and MAS training
played a big role. You can’t change
that with the operator if you’re not
changing that with everybody coming
in that gate.
This includes team leadership
and having a ‘one team’ mentality.
We call it ‘the good ship Ainscough.‘
It is about everybody is on this one
ship and everyone being essential to
moving it in the same direction.
Winter 2021 www.operationsengineer.org.uk 21
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