How to Choose a Crane Inspection Company

Intro: How to Choose a Crane Inspection Company

— How do you know if an inspection company can actually keep your schedule on track, and communicate clearly when things change? And how do you tell if a provider is giving you a thorough inspection or just a check the box report that won’t actually help you prevent a breakdown? In this video, we’re going to walk you through how to vet crane inspection companies so you can find a partner you can actually trust to keep your facility safe and your equipment running.

My name is Ben. This is the Lifting & Rigging Channel and today I’m joined by David Williams, Mazzella Crane Service Specialist, and he is going to help us discover how you can choose an overhead crane inspection company.

What to Ask When Evaluating a Crane Inspection Company

So David, my first question, if you were hiring your own inspection company for your own facility, what would you look for? What would you be asking? How would you evaluate that company?

— I would ask the crane service provider what successes they’ve had with other companies. I would focus on Fortune 500 companies, look at their successes and, and ask if they were able to increase their utilization rates and lower their overall cost on preventive maintenance.

— How can you separate the companies that are going to do a really thorough inspection compared to a company that’s going to just give you that, “Hey, you’re compliant.”

— A check the box company, they’re just looking to get that inspection done. Hopefully get a few repairs out of it. A high performing maintenance company, they’re going to, they’re going to try to build a relationship, a long-term relationship with the company they’re doing work for. Be able to predict maintenance issues and prevent them. And you need to be asking the questions of what are you guys looking for? How are you going to respond when you find something?

Technician Capabilities: Parts, OEM Relationships & Regional Coverage

You need to look at what their capabilities are. What can you do for us when you find an issue? What kind of safety issues would you report to us? What kind of maintenance reliability issues would you report to us? You should be asking if the technicians have parts on their truck when they show up.

You need to find out what relationships they have with the OEMs to see what their lead time on parts could be, especially for the types of equipment you have on site. They should be listening for keywords such as long-term relationships, utilization, things like that. That are going to let them know that they’re looking for a long-term service provider, and not just someone there for that, you know, inspection.

— How can a company determine if a company has enough technicians to actually support them? Some companies have more technicians. Some, more technicians in certain regions. How can they determine if they’re actually going to be supported?

— They need to be asking that crane service provider about their regional coverage. How many technicians that they have in their area? How often are they canceling, you know, on the customer? They should be asking if they offer a 24/7 service for after hours breakdowns and things like that.

Crane Inspections vs. Emergency Breakdowns

— An emergency breakdown’s probably going to take priority over your inspection. That inspection can happen at any time. If someone’s down, they need to cover that.

So should they be asking about how they handle cancellations and how they support that, how they reschedule anything like that?

— People might think that an inspection is less important than a breakdown, but you have to review what’s going on. The customer may have shut down for that inspection. And furthermore, an inspection is more than just looking to see what’s going on right now. It’s to find issues and set up reliability for that equipment.

What to Expect When a Crane Inspection Finds Issues

— If an inspection identifies any issues, what should the customers expect about the repairs that they can get on site?

— They should be confident that someone is going to review that inspection report with them, go over the issues that are found and create a partnership to, you know, make a follow-up plan together. A larger inspection may take days to weeks to complete, but any important safety issues or reliability issues should be reported immediately. They should be asking for sample reports to, to show clarity, know what they’re going to receive.

Are All Overhead Crane Inspection Reports Created Equal?

— Are all inspection reports created equal across all crane inspection companies?

— Absolutely not. You know, there are different templates out there. There are different criteria that people look at and expand upon. But OSHA does, you know, specify what a crane service provider should be looking at during an inspection.

Mazzella offers a, a training program that they learn the criteria for inspections. They learn how to predict maintenance issues and prevent maintenance issues. A high performing crane service provider should be going above and beyond to create that partnership and expand upon preventive and predictive maintenance so that your reliability issues are taken care of.

Importance of Communication

Communication is absolutely the most important thing. Mazzella requires the technicians to check in with the customer upon arrival. During the inspection, we’re going to communicate with their production team to make sure that we’re able to get on that equipment and not interrupt anything that’s going on with their production. They’re going to reach out for any safety issues and/or reliability issues immediately. And then post-inspection, they’re going to check out with the customer and let them know what’s going on and what they’ve found.

How to Compare Crane Inspection Company Prices

— What should you be keeping in mind when you’re looking at price differences between inspection companies?

— You need to look at crane service provider’s capabilities and see what kind of value added proposition they can bring to the table. High performing crane service providers need to be able to provide rigging solutions below the hook solutions and other lifting solutions as well as just the crane service items. Customers sometimes make a mistake by thinking that a lower price inspection is better for them. You need to look at that value added proposition and make sure that the crane service provider has an interest in long-term relationship rather than just being there, taking care of that quick inspection.

— Hopefully this video gave you the information you need to vet your next crane inspection and service company. Mazzella can help with your crane inspections. We can also help with preventative and predictive maintenance as well as twenty four seven emergency breakdown service and all your other compliance requirements like rigging, racking and fall protection inspections. We’re here to partner with you for all your lifting needs. If you found this video useful, informative, entertaining, or you just feel like being friendly, hit that like button so we can get this information out to everyone who needs it. Subscribe so you never miss video. Remember, safe rigging is smart rigging. My name is Ben. Stay safe out there.