Operators:

Industrial rigging, as well as dismantling operations, necessitate the use of at least one, if not many, pieces of heavy equipment, such as cranes, forklifts, aerial lifts, and other similar equipment. It’s not easy to operate heavy machinery. If your workers aren’t properly educated, it can cause a slew of issues for your task and company. This is why accredited safety training for heavy machinery operators is so critical before beginning the job.

Many heavy machinery operator schools provide training and skills that allow applicants to become certified by one or more nationally-recognized professional associations. Heavy machinery operators are not required to be licensed or accredited in all states. In addition, not all forms of equipment need licensing or certification to work in those areas that do. So, what is the significance of professional certification?

Some states do not mandate the licensing and/or certification of heavy equipment operators.

While not all states mandate heavy machinery operators to be licensed or certified, many do. Although precise criteria differ by jurisdiction, many states recognize technical association certification as either a prerequisite for licensing or as appropriate enough on its own to run some heavy machinery within their boundaries.

Training for Heavy Equipment

Heavy equipment operator courses provide instruction in a range of equipment styles, enabling participants to broaden their versatility and experience on the job, which is appealing to employers. The following are some examples of machinery that students can practice to operate:

• Backhoes
• Rough Terrain Forklifts
• Road Graders
• Excavators
• Inspection and maintenance of equipment
• Dump Truck
• Bulldozers

Pay and Benefits:

A high school degree or GED is usually all that is needed to be accepted into a heavy machinery operator training program. Graduate students of the program discover that their salary as a heavy machinery operator much exceeds their former regular paycheck life.

National averages and real earnings can differ depending on the job and position. Many operators with the complexity and range of experience and skills learned from a heavy machinery operator training program, on the other hand, would discover themselves attracting higher demand and earn higher salaries than their rivals.

Additionally, certain companies will reimburse their employees for heavy machinery schools’ job education and training programs. Aside from the decent pay and benefits, the job is demanding and provides the satisfaction of seeing the tangible effects of one’s labor.

Safety:

If an accident occurs on the construction site as a result of insufficient preparation, it may greatly increase the project’s total expense. Mishaps may cause machinery to break down, necessitating the procurement of repair parts or, in the worst-case scenario, a completely new piece of equipment. Operators who have received rigorous instruction know how to prevent these mishaps and properly find Used Heavy Equip for Sale. They also learn how to best maintain the machinery so that it can be kept up and running on a daily basis with minimal maintenance.

Driving On A Construction Site

Operating heavy machinery, including trucks, should always be approached with great caution and concern for the safety of everyone around you. Nowhere is this more critical than on a construction site. Because job sites feature rough terrain, lots of activity, and little in the way of paved roads, they’re overflowing with unpredictability. Truck drivers need to make safe practices a top priority every day. Read on to learn some helpful safety tips to ensure you do so.

Equip Trucks With Warning Systems

Although it’s impossible for drivers to see 360 degrees around them at all times, there are numerous ways to improve visibility and alert others on the site to their presence. Rear- and side-view mirrors are the most obvious of these, but manufacturers are adding video cameras to newer vehicles to help you see more of your surroundings. If you have an older fleet, there are aftermarket systems available that make it easier to increase awareness of what’s going on around you. Backup warning alerts enhance safety by letting others know when the vehicle is in reverse and the driver may not be able to see directly behind him or her.

Stay Focused at All Times

Driving while distracted is never a good idea, but it can be tragic on the Jobsite. Wearing headphones or using a cell phone while driving creates a potentially dangerous situation in a construction area. This is why truck drivers need to keep their eyes and minds on their jobs at all times. Avoiding distractions inside the cab ensures that you’re more alert and aware when you need to be most.

Inspect Your Trucks Every Day

Many times, unsafe conditions are created by mechanical issues with the vehicles themselves, not operator error. This is why it’s crucial to perform visual inspections of each vehicle in your fleet before each shift. Checking for worn brakes, broken tail lights, frayed wiring, and similar issues mean you can catch them before they have a chance to lead to serious accidents. Any potential problems you discover should be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Invest in Training

Safe drivers are made, not born. If you’re in charge of a job site, you should provide adequate training on all necessary safety protocols and regulations. Safety Tips: If you’re a driver, ask what kind of education programs exist at your employer to keep everyone up to date and aware of their responsibilities.

Create a Temporary Roadway

One of the most important things you can do to ensure safe driving conditions at your site doesn’t even involve being behind the wheel. Using timber mats to create temporary roads for trucks and other heavy equipment makes areas safer. This is because they provide a sturdy, stable platform for machines to cross without worrying about slippery or soft soils creating unpredictable situations.

Safety Tip: Driving safely in the cramped, bustling environment of the average construction site may be more difficult than on the open road, but it’s absolutely imperative. Take these tips to heart, and you can ensure that everyone on the job can go home safely each night.

Safe + Sound Week was observed during August and the week was a time to celebrate the successes of workplace safety and health programs. Throughout the week, information was made readily available for other tips to help improve workplace safety.

The United States Department of Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) believes that the annual event is beneficial in many ways. Successful health and safety programs can identify and manage workplace hazards so injuries and illness can be avoided. OSHA’s goal is to improve sustainability and make safety the priority.

Many organizations have found participating in Safe + Sound Week can help get a safety program underway, bring new life to an existing program, or just offer companies the opportunity to recognize successful programs and employee efforts.

Who Should Participate?

All organizations who are needing an opportunity to recognize their safety commitment should join in the annual event. During 2018, more than 2,70 businesses participated and helped raise awareness about workers’ safety and health. During 2019, almost 2,500 businesses signed up to join the activities.

To learn more about the annual event, and to participate next year, visit the OSHA website at https://www.osha.gov/safeandsoundweek/.  You should plan year-round for safety and implement the appropriate changes and programs to help encourage your employees to safely and effectively handle all projects.

Every business should have a safety plan in place and have a published list of safety protocol for all the different job roles in their operation. Businesses who have such programs have much lower accident rates and fewer injuries reported.

While accidents happen in all job roles, more construction workers are injured or killed on the job than those in other professions. According to the Laborers’ Health and Safety Fund of North America, the number of construction deaths on the job in the construction industry increased in 2016 based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data. There were 5,190 fatal on-the-job injuries in the U.S. in 2016, according to the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries. That figure was a 7 percent increase over 2015. Of those deaths, 970 of them were in the construction industry.

• When the figures were looked at more closely, the most common workplace accident that led to death was transportation accidents, which accounted for 40 percent of the fatalities. More workers were killed in transportation accidents than in any other work-related incident.
• The second most common fatal event was violence that was caused by other people and/or animals.
• Another shocking figure involved overdoses on the job. On-the-job overdoses increased 32 percent from 2015 totals. Fatalities that were tied to overdoses have continued to increase by at least 25 percent per year since 2012.

One of every five workplace death happens in the construction industry. When that is broken down, about 80 construction workers die every month in a workplace accident. When construction accidents were reviewed more closely, the leading cause of death for construction workers is falling. Of the construction workplace fatalities, 379 people died in falls during 2016, which was an increase from 348 in 2015.

While many construction workers interact with tools and heavy equipment on a daily basis, about one-fourth of the laborers killed in the construction industry were killed because of unintentional contact with machinery or equipment, such as cranes, grading machinery, backhoes, front-end loaders, forklifts, and aerial lifts. There were fewer transportation-related deaths in the construction industry, but there were more trench deaths – with the number climbing to 37 in 2016 from the previous year’s 26 deaths.

Construction Worker Dies After Falling Down Shaft in Florida

According to Miami news stations, a construction worker died after falling down an elevator shaft while working on a building in Hallandale Beach, Florida. According to the news reports, the worker was working inside a large building being constructed in the vicinity of Southeast Third Avenue in Hallandale Beach on Friday, May 3, 2019, when he fell down the elevator shaft. This is why ATS teaches safety training.

According to the authorities who responded to the accident scene, the construction worker was helping build an addition for the building when he fell to his death. Police reports indicate that the fall was at least 10 stories. Hallandale Beach Fire and Rescue got help from the Broward County Sheriff’s Fire Rescue in recovering the body of the construction worker.

Crane Collapse in Seattle

On April 27, 2019, a construction crane that had been working on an office building for Google in Seattle, Washington, collapsed onto Mercer Street below. Four people were killed, and four others were injured. Many experts believe that the pins or bolts were prematurely loosened or removed from the crane and that made the crane’s vertical mast more vulnerable to the wind pressure that day, allowing the crane to topple. Many experts say the crane collapse was because of human error during the disassembling process.

In this case, it is believed that the workers prematurely removed the pins that secured sections of the mast to one another, and that caused the crane to topple. While sometimes workers remove the pins prematurely, that practice doesn’t coincide with the instructions of the manufacturer for the crane disassembly process. There is an investigation into the incident, and five companies that played a role in the construction project are being reviewed.

The Importance of Safety at Construction Sites

Construction workers must adhere to safety training guidelines when working on construction sites. Many workers are injured on the job every year, and often, these injuries can be avoided when the proper safety gear is used, and the proper protocol are followed.

When natural disasters strike, from Hurricanes across Texas to mudslides in California, the news reports are full of information, shocking images, and stories of tragedy and heroism alike. However, such is the pace of the world we live in today, that a week later, the story has moved elsewhere, and the last we hear about those terrible situations are the images of houses buried or destroyed, flooded roads, and so on. How many of us think about what happens next, and how such devastation is cleared up?

The most important thing to occur after the devastating disaster like the mudslides in California earlier this year took place long after the TV crews and cameras had gone to the next story, and that was the long process of cleaning up, salvaging what was possible from wrecked homes and clearing up the roads to make them useable again.

Using a range of equipment, the cleanup specialist’s first challenge is not moving the mud, but the mud itself. With potential contaminants including oil, gas, pesticides, sewage, and a wide range of chemicals washed out of people’s homes, it’s a potential health hazard in its own right. Care when moving the mud was essential, and teams of dozers, loaders, and dump trucks from specialists such as National Plant Services were employed to move the huge quantities of mud, which was dumped at the coast to reinforce costal protections and prevent yet more problems from storm flooding.

With the most significant volume of mud removed in the first month, attention then turned to the infrastructure of the region. Each manhole had to be opened and checked individually, a difficult task with some invisible due to the layer of mud. The entire city collection system had been affected by the mud, and every drain, sewer, and access point had to be checked by hand. To accomplish this, teams of contractors and city workers worked together, using maps to identify where access points should be, and using dozers to scrape away remaining mud to get at them.

In some cases, where opening the manhole revealed mud right to the top, and here Vac-Con trucks were deployed to clean out the sewers and restore normal operations. Camera equipment was used to assess areas that were less obviously obstructed, and much of the work involved removing large stone and rock debris from within the pipes, left behind by the mud.

With the constant hazard of the mud and debris around them, this is tough work for any contractor, and it took 2 months of 7 days a week, 15 hours a day shifts to finish the disaster cleanup. With teams from three different disaster cleanup specialists aided by city workers and national guard engineers working together to complete the task, that is a lot of manhours and a lot of unsung effort.

It might not be as attention-grabbing as the disasters, but the people who find themselves struggling in the aftermath of any such event need the men and women who clean up after the cameras have gone. Maybe it’s time we all said a thank you for what they do.

Every course we teach includes a section that refers to safety on site, and it is something that is incredibly important for every heavy equipment operator, every day. However, part of that dedication to safety includes the clothes we wear, but what do you need to look out for to get the right safety clothing when on-site?

Boots

Having good boots is important, not only for protection but for comfort too, there is nothing worse than a pair of boots that hurt when you have a long day ahead of you. Steel-toed boots are of course essential, but also look for quality leather that will wear in and provide real comfort, good grippy soles are important too, and always ensure that the lacing is strong and sturdy too.

Gloves

The right gloves are a balance between protection and flexibility, you don’t want gloves that get in the way too much, as they just become annoying after a while, but very thin gloves don’t really offer enough protection. For winter, insulated gloves, especially those that use effective but light insulation such as Thinsulate, are a wise choice, and for all seasons, goatskin gloves provide strength and abrasion resistance without adding weight.

Safety Glasses

Glasses should be of the right kind, for instance, made specifically to fit over your ordinary glasses if you wear them. All glasses should conform to government safety standards.

Hard Hat

There are two things you need from your hard hat, that they conform to safety standards, and that they fit well. Fit is a personal thing, but make sure it’s comfortable to wear, it can become really annoying over a long period if it’s not.

Hearing protection

Again, make sure yours complies with regulations, and today many incorporate radio systems so that you can stay in contact with site supervisors.

High-Visibility Clothes

Having a high-visibility jacket is essential on most sites today, and it is something you shouldn’t ignore. It can be the difference maker and save you from disaster, especially on sites with multiple pieces of heavy equipment operating at the same time.

Finally, think about the rest of your clothing, you want to avoid anything particularly loose, as that has the potential to get caught in mechanisms, and make sure in the winter that you have appropriate warm clothing as needed. It may not always seem too cold, but after a day on-site it can creep up on you.

As with all aspects of construction work, when digging safely it is important to make sure the whole process is as safe as possible for everyone concerned and to do that we must understand the risks that we take on when digging. Risks from equipment are obvious, and on-site safety procedures take care of that aspect of the dig, but there is another area of risk when digging, and that is that we don’t always know what is underneath us in any location.

Today the country is crisscrossed with underground pipelines, most of them are part of our utility systems, and each presents a danger of its own. From electrical power lines and lighting cables to gas and oil pipes, sewers and drain lines, and even petroleum and gas lines in some situations, all present real danger to operators, those on the site, and the general public should they be damaged.

It is not just danger of course, while the immediate issues of cutting a power line for the operator are clear, there is also the problem for possibly thousands of people it can affect, something else to be avoided too. But, without starting digging, the question is, how do you know what you will find once your digging starts?

The good news is that there is a nationwide initiative to combat this, known as “call before you dig”, in fact, it is a legal requirement to call the service before digging. While a national service, each state runs its own version, accessing it involves dialing a state code plus 811, and you can quickly find the state code for your site online. Contractors should call 2 to 10 days before work starts, giving the location and details. Outline the area of the dig in white paint to show the utility company the affected area. The call center will pass the information to the appropriate utility companies, who will mark lines in that area for you.

Markings follow a standard color code as follows:

• Red – Electric power lines, cables, conduit, and lighting cables
• Orange – Telecommunication, alarm or signal lines, cables, or conduit
• Yellow – Natural gas, oil, steam, petroleum, or other gaseous or flammable material
• Green – Sewers and drain lines
• Blue – Portable (drinkable) water
• Purple – Reclaimed water, irrigation, and slurry lines
• White – Proposed excavation limits or route

Once the lines have been marked, you must then confirm with the service that the lines have been accurately located. How you confirm does vary little from state to state, so check with your local center for the exact process.

You can call for a remark should the loss of marking be unavoidable during the project, part of a contractor’s legal requirement is to maintain the marks throughout the project’s life, and with the lines carefully marked, the dig can continue safely, avoiding problems and reducing risks.

Modern technology and high training standards mean that safety records are better than ever today, but when cranes are involved, safety should never be taken for granted. As loads have become bigger and sites more complex, the need to create a platform for safety standards and accepted practices that took modern innovation into account was noted by OSHA at the start of this decade. Today, we have a thoroughly modern safety system designed by OSHA that recognizes the risks such large cranes and loads represent and provides the operating practices that best minimize those risks.

Central to those safety standards is training, with operators of cranes requiring certification by an accredited crane operator testing organization for the size of crane they are using. In practice, with relatively few such organizations, this means passing a National Commission for the Certification of Crane Operators (NCCCO) training program. These are held by accredited teaching facilities, offering complete training courses culminating in NCCCO written and practical exams. Additionally, OSHA has also detailed Rigger/Signalperson training and standards that work in conjunction with their operator processes.

OSHA takes the view that well-trained operators, riggers, and signal staff operate in a safer way when on site in normal circumstances, but are also trained to recognize risks and take steps to avoid them, and are able to maintain a higher safety standard even in difficult situations. They have been proven correct too, and while the changes in regulations in 2010 did cause some concern in the industry, the better performance and safety today have shown the value of those changes over time.

Here at ATS, we offer a comprehensive NCCCO training program that covers every aspect of crane operation and OSHA regulation compliance. We also have a rigger/signalperson program available that covers all aspects of OSHA regulation as well as NCCCO Rigger 1 and 2 programs as well.

All courses include both written and practical training, and offer comprehensive, effective education for any crane operator or rigger/signalperson, providing not just an NCCCO or compliance certification, but the knowledge, skill, and understanding to be safe and productive onsite.

Our training delivers competent, reliable, skilled workers who understand the job, but also know how to carry out their tasks as safely as possible, for themselves, for the site, and for their team. We are proud to offer courses that actively improve safety on site, and our crane and rigger courses do just that by following all OSHA compliance requirements, with well-thought-out programs and testing via the NCCCO.

Safety-conscious personnel delivers a safer work environment. OSHA believes that and we see it for ourselves, better training, improved safety awareness, and fewer accidents. ATS delivers the training and mindset that produces those results.

Trenching, or digging a ditch, may look like it is a simple process that anyone with a shovel or a rented backhoe can do. But that mistake causes many accidents and even deaths every year. According to OSHA (Occupational Safety & Health Administration), “the fatality rate for excavation work is 112% higher than the rate for general construction.”

Trenching Safety

Here are the four top causes of injury, according to OSHA’s Trenching & Excavation eTool:

1. no protective system
2. failure to inspect trench and protective systems
3. unsafe spoil-pile placement
4. unsafe access/egress

The eTool has simple guides for avoiding each of these, but reading some information is not the same thing as being trained by qualified instructors. These teachers have the credentials that result in certifications future employers and insurance companies respect.

Why Training Is Better Than Teaching Yourself

Excavators do a dangerous job. When the consequences of making a mistake are things like injury or death, it’s better to begin the learning process in a classroom with expert teachers who can give you the benefit of their experience. You can learn about the types of mistakes that can be made and what will happen. Then, after the “head” knowledge is there, the “seat-of-the-pants” knowledge can be added in an environment designed to keep mistakes from being deadly.

Everyone makes mistakes when learning how to do something even trenching. That’s why some teachers say that F-A-I-L stands for “First Attempt In Learning”. Teaching yourself certain skills is a very good idea, and reading up on OSHA guides to a career you are interested in is a good idea, too. But if you are interested in operating heavy equipment, particularly those that are used in excavating, the best thing you can do is invest in credentialed training like that offered at ATS Heavy Equipment Operator Training School.