Industrial & Manufacturing Articles
Cranes are meant to do certain construction and shipping jobs and they do them well. However, there are times when the owners and operators of cranes feel that, in order to better serve their needs, the cranes can use a little modification or modernization. Although crane modification by Colorado crane modifiers is a completely legal business, the crane modifiers do have to follow the set standard of OSHA regulations.
OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, holds the primary responsibility to all American workers to secure their complete safety and well-being while workers are on the job. With regards to crane modification, Colorado crane modifying companies have to keep up to date on what is legal and not legal to do when they are changing the job functions of a crane. Such companies receive, via email or snail mail, notifications in the OSHA regulations that will assist them in keeping everything they do on the up and up.
Part of what that entails for Colorado crane modification companies is the active research on what modifications each crane manufacturer may allow. Even with recent modifications and modernizations to certain manufacturers' cranes, the Colorado crane modification companies have to seek permission from those manufacturers to modify the cranes. Sometimes the crane manufacturers will give the modifying companies the green light and may even give them the engineering plans to help modify the cranes and keep employees safe in the process. At other times, the crane manufacturers will put their foot down and refuse to allow modifications to be made to their cranes. The crane modifying companies can't override that decision unless, according to OSHA, the manufacturer is no longer in business and the modifying company has a highly trained and skilled engineer on staff who can provide the plans for modification or modernization and still ensure that everyone working with the modified/modernized crane will be as safe as they possibly can be.
With regards to shipping cranes, many of these need to be modified and/or modernized because they still operate on the idea that ships are the same size they were forty or fifty years ago. This is a prime example of how cranes need to be updated; freight ships have almost doubled in size in the last twenty to thirty years, but shipping cranes have not. In order to load the larger shipping vessels, the cranes either have to take the time to load much smaller amounts or take a chance and load the maximum weight allotted just to load the boats faster. Obviously, OSHA would prefer the former because there is a significant chance with the latter that injuries and fatalities could occur. That is precisely why OSHA has regulations regarding the modification and modernization of cranes; to help the shipping companies improve on their efficiency and to assure employees' safety in the job as well.
Colorado's crane modification companies work as contractors for their customers. Engineers, architects, construction crews and general labor employees all come together to work on a single project. The ultimate goal is increased efficiency and maximum safety, something which the modification companies understand completely and do quite well. Boom additions and jacks are the most common, but increased capacity for load transport is a close second when it comes to modification and modernization requests. Once the work is pronounced complete and both the shipping company and the modification company has dotted all their "i's" and crossed all their "t's", OSHA makes a visit to verify that the entire site and crane modification is safe and up to code. Only then can the shipping company be allowed to run the crane with its new additions.
For more information, go to http://amquipinc.com/.
Sources
7 January 2014
