Keeping your Focus, in Focus
by Rick Marshall
Chairman
ADSC Safety Committee
Rick Marshall is the Safety Director at ADSC Contractor Member firm, Richard Goettle, Inc., Cincinnati, Ohio. Rick also serves as chairman of the ADSC's Safety Committee. (Editor)
We begin 2006 with questions forwarded to the ADSC Safety Committee about drill rigs and their “lifting capacity.” We have read some newspaper stories about drill rigs overturning on jobsites, and industry scuttlebutt has informed us of service crane boom failures and overturning incidents as well. As an industry, we tend to believe in our own myth, that once informed about a subject, we always will remember the information and will therefore always behave in a proactive manner to insure accidents or incidents do not occur. In a perfect world this would be true; however, our world is a little different and far from perfect. Perhaps we are simply losing our focus on the basic fundamental procedures that guide us to a positive work environment.
How many employees do we all have that make comments like “I’ve been doing it this way for thirty years,” or “If you’ve never screwed something up, you ain’t doing nothing.” How scary is it when you have thirty something aged employees making these comments right along side of the “older more mature” crowd? Have you ever listened in on a “Hey you want to see my scar” or “If I had been just a couple of inches closer, I’d be a gonner” kind of a conversation? Some of these conversations are quite awe inspiring (especially when properly embellished) and yet you never hear (Paul Harvey forgive me) the rest of the story. I am talking about the part where the storyteller describes what they did to insure it never happens again.
Perhaps it’s time to look into our organizations’ respective mirrors and take a good hard look at what we see. What happens in your company if someone suggests a new procedure, technique, or policy change? Some people look at the new procedure as a challenge, or perhaps a problem we can solve, while unfortunately others see a new or different procedure or policy as a really dumb idea, usually before it is even implemented on a trail basis. We have never done that before so therefore it is a dumb idea, is a typical construction mindset. Those who choose to embrace the challenge do so in an attempt to better the company and themselves. The naysayers among us continue to be a problem and not a part of a solution. The naysayers in our companies reinforce our loss of focus.
Have we ever drilled from a barge before? Can we really drill a 12 foot diameter shaft under slurry? Often times the answer is YES WE CAN, but if someone suggests that we CAN’T, all of a sudden we all tend to believe that indeed, we can’t do it. The same concept applies in the field when we are working our cranes and drill rigs. The challenges are typically less in scale, often times even go unnoticed, but are always there. I am referring to basic, safe crane and drill rig operation.
Do we take the time to level the crane before we hoist the cage or casing? Do we use available earth moving equipment to grade an access way for the crane or drill rig, or do we just use the crane or drill rig itself to “plow” its way through. I mean, after all, the car body makes a good dozer blade and once the crane sinks down deep enough, it’s stable, right? Have any of you repaired a drive chain on a crawler rig that is buried up to its undercarriage in mud? And then have the other side break when you try to move it because we still didn’t clear away the material that has bound up the tracks? That would take too much time to move the material, we say to ourselves, so we allow the same thing that hurt us in the first place to bite us in the butt once again. It is so easy to get in the mindset of we can’t take the time to do those basic things, so we lose the focus.
A crawler mount drill rig can climb some impressive grades, and work from an un-level position, so therefore, it is not necessary to inspect the work environment for soft areas or sinkhole like anomalies prior to travel. “Drill it and fill it,” “If it ain’t turning to the right we ain’t making any money” we scream to the field hands. (For those of you who drill anchors or micropiles, the same applies to you, although you may turn both left and right). Here is a challenge: When do we send the vibratory hammer to site to pull casing out – before or after the boom goes backwards over the cab when trying to extract casing? How about using the drill rig to set cages or beams for soldier piles? When do you realize the drill rig has become unstable or has reached its maximum hoisting capacity - before or after it has turned over or structurally failed? It is pretty impressive though how fast we can get a new boom or a different drill rig, a vibro hammer or assist crane there; sometimes the very next day! Oops, there’s that focus thing again.
Hey, the operator should have known better. The goofball we have as a foreman didn’t do it right. Did they know the correct procedures, or did we assume they did? And if they did know the correct way to do the task, why did they do it wrong? Are our projects becoming so complicated that we cannot manage them correctly, or could it be something as simple as we have lost sight of the three simple disciplines that keep us in business: Safety, Production, and Quality Control. We all should have only three mandates in our organizations. 1) Work Safely, 2) Be As Productive As Possible, 3) Maintain The Highest Level Of Quality Control. Sure there are numerous bullet points that describe how to achieve each mandate, but the “Big Three” is where the focus must be at all times and at all levels of the organization.
When we have a breakdown in that focus, something negative invariably happens. For instance, are we not all guilty of “speeding things up” to increase productivity? Case in point; don’t most of you managers start off your conversations with the superintendent with “How many did you get today?” Does that question imply we should sacrifice QA/QC or safety for an increase in productivity? We don’t actually intend for that to happen, but does it? Where is the focus? How many quality micropiles did we get today without any incidents? That is a more focused question, and one we all need to be asking.
We have so many opportunities to fail in our business. We constantly deal with the unknown when we work below the earth’s surface. Let’s get back to focusing on the simple things; the ones we do know about and the ones we can control. We all use drill rigs of some sort and make use of many different types of cranes during the course of an average day. The operation of this type of equipment is so commonplace that we often lose our focus concerning the hazards associated with their use. Oftentimes it takes an incident or injury to cause us to re-focus on how to use this equipment correctly.
The basic or fundamental activities are what usually get us in trouble, not the new or different procedures. Improper crane or drill rig set up, overloading, side loading, unstable conditions, not using all of the outriggers, improper, or worse yet, no blocking under outrigger pads, not knowing the weight of the object to be lifted, no swing radius barricades, overhead power line contact, to name a few are fundamental and controllable conditions which are guaranteed to result in damage, injury or death to something or somebody, if we lose focus.
Our industry was all up in arms not long ago, because OSHA was potentially going to call our drill rigs a “crane.” We circled the wagons, loaded our guns and put up a good fight. We spoke up and said that we can self regulate our industry, and in fact, we are willing to align with and teach OSHA how we safely operate, remain productive, and maintain high levels of quality control. We even demonstrated it to them live and in color at GEO3. But my friends, the regulatory folks also read the newspaper, and watch television. How long will it be before they begin to question our ability to self regulate? We all need to focus on the “Big Three,” starting today.
The Safety Committee welcomes input from all ADSC members on safety related topics which need to be addressed in our industry. This article expresses only one viewpoint. Perhaps you have a different one. Please feel free to contact the ADSC at (214-343-2091) or by email (adsc@adsc-iafd.com). They will put you in contact with the Safety Committee members.
Have a Safe and Focused Day! ▪
