One rarely finds a construction site without at least a single tower crane. The operation of a tower crane can present a risk of injury to people and property for several reasons. Those include reasons attributed to structural failure, which consists of the failure of any crane component, such as the boom, jib, hydraulic rams, or wire rope. Other reasons for tower crane failures could be attributed to crane collapse, which can occur if the crane becomes unstable as a result of overloading, contact, or collision with other plants, structures, or other tower cranes, falling objects which can occur during erecting, jumping, and dismantling activities and by the way loads are secured during lifting operations and falls from height as workers can fall when erecting, dismantling or maintaining tower cranes.
Formal inspection of the tower cranes during the construction is crucial to ensure that actions and measures needed to avoid and mitigate the causes of failure must be performed daily and for each shift. The inspection checklist should cover all items required to be inspected based on the organization’s experience, the tower crane manufacturer, and other compliance requirements.
Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb, the contractor can create all health, safety, environment, and quality (HSEQ) inspection checklists, including the Tower Crane Inspection Form. The PMWeb custom form builder will be used to create the inspection form, which will include project details, tower crane details that could consist of information on the tower crane brand, date purchased, 3rd party inspection certificate, and 3rd party certificate of the tower crane operator, among others. In addition, the form will include the inspection list items for which the inspector needs to verify their compliance daily, along with any comments against the inspection item. In addition, the form will have a remark filed for the overall inspection form. Using the copy command, the inspector can eliminate the need to reinput data that have not changed since the last inspection.
The attachment tab will be used to attach pictures of the tower crane, copies of all certificates of the tower cranes and the tower crane operator, as well as photos of all non-compliance items that need to be rectified. All those documents will be stored in the PMWeb document management repository under a specific folder or subfolder. Of course, links to other related PMWeb records, like Safety Incidents, can also be linked to the Tower Crane Inspection Form.
A Workflow will be assigned to the inspection form to enforce formal review and approval and share copies of the completed inspection with other project parties. Of course, for non-PMWeb users, the Notification command can send a copy of the Tower Crane Inspection output form to those users.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM, is a Senior Project Management Consultant with over 35-year service record providing project management and controls services to over 100 projects with a total value of over US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education, and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping-Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication, and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in project management, including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for over six years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), an accredited Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), an Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE), and a Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Master’s in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation from George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – from Kuwait University, Kuwait, and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA, and London Business School, London, UK.