What a lift plan is, and what it is not

Ask for RAMS and you will get a document. Whether it is any use depends on whether anybody wrote it about your site or whether it is a template with your name typed into the header.

The two documents

A risk assessment lists what could go wrong and what is being done about it. A method statement describes, in order, what will actually happen on the day. They usually travel together, which is where RAMS comes from. On top of that a lift needs a lift plan, which is the specific engineering: this load, this crane, this radius, this ground.

What a real lift plan contains

• The weight of the load and how that weight was established, not assumed
• The crane, the configuration, and the capacity at the radius being used — with the margin stated
• Where the vehicle stands, where the outriggers land, and the spread
• The ground bearing pressure under each leg and what pads are needed to keep it inside what the ground will take
• The lifting accessories, their rating, and how the load is attached
• Exclusion zone, who controls it, and what happens to pedestrians and other trades
• Wind limit and the abort criteria — the conditions under which the lift does not happen
• Who is the appointed person, who is slinging, who is the banksman

The part that gets skipped

Ground bearing pressure. An outrigger concentrates a very large force into a very small area. Our 855 puts up to 220 kN through a single stabiliser. On soft cohesive ground that needs something in the order of five and a half square metres of pad to stay inside what the ground will bear; on compacted crushed stone it is well under a square metre. Same crane, same load, seven times the pad.

That is not a theoretical point. Basements, drainage runs, service ducts, fresh tarmac and recently backfilled trenches have all put lorries where nobody wanted them.

What we do

Site-specific RAMS and a lift plan for the actual job, turned round quickly, with the ground pressure worked for the ground you have told us about. Not a template. If you send us a site plan and tell us where the lorry will stand, that is usually enough to write it from.

Health, safety and RAMS · Load charts and ground pressure data · What we are accredited to