5.1 The lift plan: decided before the hook moves

1 What the standard requires, and what it leaves to you

Federal OSHA does not have a rule headed "lift plan" for ordinary rigging. What it has is a set of duties that cannot be discharged without one, and they are worth listing because they draw the outline of the plan for you.

• The weight has to be established by an accepted method, and provided to the crane operator on request — 1926.1417(o)(3).
• The equipment must not be operated in excess of its rated capacity, and the operator must not be required to do so — 1926.1417(o)(1) and (o)(2).
• Hoisting routes must minimise exposure of employees to hoisted loads where available, to the extent consistent with public safety — 1926.1425(a).
• The fall zone must be cleared of everyone except the few categories 1926.1425(b) names.
• Swing radius hazard areas must be identified, marked and controlled — 1926.1424(a).
• Signals must be arranged and a signal person provided where the standard requires one — 1926.1419(a).
• Traveling with a load, where it is not prohibited by the manufacturer, requires a competent person to supervise and to determine capacity reduction, load position, boom location, ground support, route, overhead obstructions and speed — 1926.1417(u).

Nobody makes seven determinations like that in the moment, with a crane running. They are made in advance, and writing them down is simply the cheapest way to make sure the same seven answers reach everyone involved.

2 Three levels of planning

Two of those thresholds are set by federal rules rather than by taste: multiple-crane lifts pick up the supplemental requirements of 1926.1432, and hoisting personnel is a separate standard entirely. Everything else is a judgment your organisation makes and should make the same way every time.

3 What goes in a written lift plan

1. 1
   The load. What it is, what it weighs, where that weight came from, what is included, and where the center of gravity is.
2. 2
   The rigging. Slings by type and rated capacity, the hitch, the sling angle, the calculated leg tension, the hardware, the below-the-hook devices and their weights, and the edge protection.
3. 3
   The equipment. Crane or hoist, configuration, radius, the capacity at that radius from the chart, and the resulting percentage of capacity.
4. 4
   The ground and the position. Where the equipment sets up, what is under it, and what has been done about it.
5. 5
   The route. Pick point, path, set point, and what is under the path — people, live process, traffic, power lines.
6. 6
   The zones. Fall zone, swing radius, and how they are marked and controlled.
7. 7
   The people. Named: operator, qualified rigger, signal person, lift director if there is one, and who else is authorised inside the zones.
8. 8
   Communication. Hand or radio, which channel, what happens if it fails.
9. 9
   Stop conditions. Wind, visibility, an unexpected reading, a person in the zone — agreed in advance, so stopping is a plan rather than an argument.

A plan that fits on one page is used. A plan that runs to six is filed.

4 Percentage of capacity: the number that changes the conversation

Work out what fraction of the equipment's rated capacity at the working radius the total load represents. It costs one division and it reframes everything.

The standard already treats 75 percent as significant: under 1926.1417(o)(3)(ii), an operator who is establishing the weight by hoisting must stop and verify it properly if the load exceeds 75 percent of the maximum rated capacity at the longest radius that will be used. Many organisations use the same threshold to decide when a lift becomes a planned one.

The reason is margin. At 40 percent of capacity, a 15 percent weight error is absorbed by the machine. At 90 percent, the same error is a lift that should not have happened. The percentage tells you how much room the plan has for the things nobody thought of — and how carefully the rest of the numbers need to be checked.

5 The pre-lift briefing

The plan becomes real at the tailgate, and the briefing is short if the plan is good. Six things, out loud, with everyone who will be inside the zones present:

• What we are lifting, what it weighs, and where the heavy end is.
• The route, and what is under it.
• Where nobody stands — pointed at, not described.
• Who signals, how, and that only that person signals.
• That anyone can call a stop, and how.
• What we do if it goes wrong — where the load gets set down, who calls it.

Then the trial lift from Part 1: take the weight, stop, look at the slings, the angles, the edge protection and whether the load is level, set it back down and adjust on the ground. Never adjust rigging on a suspended load.

6 Conditions that end a lift

Deciding these in advance is what makes stopping possible. In the moment, with a load hanging and a schedule behind it, nobody wants to be the person inventing a reason.

• Wind. The manufacturer's limit for the machine and configuration, and a separate judgment about the load's sail area. A large flat panel is a different lift from a compact one at the same weight.
• Visibility. If the signal person cannot see the load or the operator cannot see the signal person, the arrangement has failed — 1926.1419(f) requires operations requiring signals to stop when the ability to transmit signals is interrupted, until it is re-established and a proper signal is given and understood.
• Anything unexpected in the numbers. A load that will not break free, a boom that deflects more than expected, a rated capacity indicator that reads high.
• A person in a zone. Not a discussion: stop, clear, restart.
• A change of plan. A different load, a different set point or a different crane position is a different lift, and the plan is revisited rather than reinterpreted.

And the backstop that sits above all of them: 1926.1418, authority to stop operation — whenever there is a concern as to safety, the operator must have the authority to stop and refuse to handle loads until a qualified person has determined that safety has been assured.