Lifting team skills and best practices

Lifting operations carried out with cranes (tower cranes, crawler or wheeled carrier cranes, lattice boom cranes, telescopic boom cranes or luffing jib cranes) require a team made up of :

• crane operator;

• of the crane operator;

• slinger(s).

This team should be present on every site where a crane is used. However, in most cases it is only present on large sites, particularly those where SPS coordination is in place [TBA 237] .

On these sites, the owner often decides to make cranes available to other companies, according to a protocol set out in the PGCSPS (Plan général de coordination sécurité protection de la santé - General Health and Safety Coordination Plan).

This team must be competent, well-trained and familiar with best practices, or at the very least with the maneuvers to be performed.

Crew members need to trust each other, and have a common language if orders are given by voice.

This article presents a non-exhaustive list of skills and best practices that every team member should possess.