How to Use Fall Protection Near an Overhead Crane

Fall Protection Around Overhead Cranes

— Are you choosing between a fall hazard and a crane collision hazard? The law is clear. If your workers are at height, they need fall protection, crane or no crane.

But the how is a massive gray area. When you put a fall arrest system in a crane’s path, you may feel like you’re trading one life threatening risk for another. Today we’re gonna show you how to get both systems working in the same space safely.

My name is Ben. This is the Lifting and Rigging Channel. I’m joined today by Arnie Galpin from Rigid Lifeline Systems, and we’re talking about how you can integrate a fall protection system with an overhead crane system.

When Is Fall Protection Required?

First of all, how does someone know if they need a fall protection system with their overhead crane system?

— Great question, Ben. So fundamentally, it’s really simple. If you have any workers who are working over four feet in elevation, they need fall protection. That’s an OSHA federal law.

Crane and Fall Protection Conflicts

— So Arnie, what are some of the conflicts that might arise when you have a fall protection system working in conjunction with an overhead crane system?

— Optimally, what you want to do is you’d want to take the power off the crane so that people can safely work around it without any danger of the crane interfering with their work equipment or their workspace.

There’s two different ways you can go. You can go with a fall protection system that is below the crane, the overhead crane, or you can go with a fall protection system that’s above the overhead crane.

What we have here is an overhead fall protection system, which is the optimal solution, simply because when you have a structure underneath the crane, there’s always the danger of the crane inadvertently moving into that structure and damaging the structure, having some interference there.

What Is Lanyard Pushing?

— What is lanyard pushing?

— When you have powered operation of the crane and the fall protection workers are working around this powered crane, you have to be very cognizant of interference between the crane up here and that SRL lanyard.

The crane operator should be adequately trained to make sure they don’t push the SRL to the point where they’re dragging a worker off the working surface.

Controls That Reduce Crane Interference

— What are some engineered controls that can be put in place to, you know, keep a crane operator from pushing someone off of an edge?

— What I described before was administrative controls where people are properly trained and there are certain roles that the different individuals play, but in an optimal solution, you would want an engineered control system.

The crane’s operation, the crane’s motion would be limited based upon where the SRLs are.

— Before you mentioned that, you know, you don’t want a crane to crash into the fall protection structure either. Are there controls that can be put in place to keep that from happening?

— So now we’re talking about structure for fall protection that’s below the crane. So there are anti-collision systems available out there that have laser distance sensing.

They can write computer programs that can quarantine off a section of the crane travel. It’s called a no-fly zone. So no matter how hard the crane operator wants to go in that position, it will not interfere with the structure that’s supporting the fall protection equipment.

Structural Review and Anchorage

— Are there any structural considerations that you need to take into account when putting a fall protection system in where you have an overhead crane system that already exists?

— When there is a fall event, there are forces that are developed to decelerate the person to a stop. So those forces are gonna be transmitted to the anchorage point.

And when you select a piece of fall protection equipment, the system that provides the fall protection, you know, you can mount it to the ceiling, you can mount it to the walls, you can mount it to the floor.

You just have to make sure that whatever those forces are from the amount of people that are gonna be working, that an engineer takes a look at the structure to make sure that the structure can resist whatever forces or torques that develop during a fall event.

Rigid Rail vs. Wire Rope

— This system here, we’ve got a rigid track system. What are some of the considerations that you need to take into account? Like maybe someone’s thinking about a cable system, or I’m sure there’s a lot of different solutions that you could consider when integrating a fall protection system with an overhead crane system.

— Flexible wire rope systems have been around for a long time, relatively inexpensive. But the serious problem, unfortunately, with wire rope system is, there’s a significant amount of sag in the wire rope, not only when it’s being installed, but also during a fall event.

So you don’t want people hitting the floor during a fall event. With a four foot clearance, it’s a little bit more critical.

So you want a rigid rail to make sure that the anchorage point doesn’t move, and when the person does decelerate to a stop, they don’t impact it and hit their feet on the floor.

— That could also interfere with the overhead crane, I assume, right?

— Absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

Can You Tie Off to a Crane?

— Is it ever acceptable to tie off directly to the crane?

— Yes, it is acceptable to attach to a crane. Generally what those systems would look like would be like a rigid rail system attached to the bridge beam.

They work well, but then again, you have the powered action interaction too, that is a little bit, you’re a little bit closer now to the lifted load. The other problem is, you don’t have a whole bunch of travel this way because you’re going on in this direction on the bridge beam.

So the optimal solution just happens to be what we’re looking at here, just having a monorail above the bridge crane.

But yeah, you can attach to a crane, you have to have a qualified person review the capacity of the crane just to make sure there’s enough over capacity. There’s some OSHA standards that are available that you can take a look at. They’re in the construction industry, but they would still apply to general industry.

— So let’s say someone’s watching this video and they just realized that they have a fall hazard that they hadn’t taken into account. Could they tie off directly to the crane hook?

— So you are allowed to tie off to the hook of a crane, if a qualified person reviews the crane, determines there’s enough strength to resist the fall event, and optimally the crane should be locked out and the crane operator should be nearby in case a rescue needs to be performed.

Is Your Setup Non-Compliant?

— How can you identify if your current situation is non-compliant? And if it is, what should you do next?

— If you have workers working on a elevated work surface that’s four feet or over, there’s a federal law requirement that you have to provide fall protection.

The easiest way to provide a solution for that is to consult somebody like Mazzella who has the expertise in fall protection, they have expertise in cranes, and they can very easily generate a system for you or options of systems that can provide worker safety.

— So if someone’s watching this and they realize that they need to get some fall protection into their crane bays, what’s the first piece of data that they should gather?

— Relatively straightforward. What is the workflow process? Where are the workers gonna be moving? How much travel do they need on their fall protection system? How many people are gonna be using the fall protection system?

And reach out to an expert like Mazzella who can provide proper solutions.

— Hopefully this video helps you understand some of your options if you need your crane and fall protection to coexist. If you’re ready to explore ways to protect your workers at height, Mazzella’s fall protection specialists are here to help.

We can do a fall protection assessment at your facility and help you sort through your options. Contact us through the link below.

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. Remember, safe rigging is smart rigging. My name is Ben. Stay safe out there.