Posted By ian chapman
I am working in a company which has overhead gantry cranes working in 3 bay areas.
The discussion is taking place as to bringing in mandatory hard hats throughout.
The workforce in general is resistat to this.
Any helpful comments/advice

Posted By holmezy
Ian,

Depends on the amount of overhead traffic, amount of people working below and what is being moved. There seems no point in making a chap wear a hard hat if the craned load is never over him. Similarly, no point in wearing a hard hat if you (like us) lift 5 tonnes at a time. No hard hat is going to prevent the chap getting a "headache" if 5 tonnes drop on him. I dont insist on hard hats, however, I do insist on the crane operator establishing a safe working area or exclusion zone when he is moving the loads overhead. If he cant move it without going over someones head, then he stops and waits until the area is clear. This may not work if you have machine operators below or if its an assembly area etc. Can you carry the load, for most of its journey at lower levels ie below head height, along designated routes.
Hard hats are recommended if there is a chance of things dropping from above, ie scaffold or mezzanines or if there is a risk of "bumps" ie scaffolding, low ceilings or protrusions and are therefore seen regularly on construction sites. It is easy to make the whole area a hard hat area but not always the right answer.

I had a mate that worked on a construction site which had a "hard hat" rule. He worked as a tiler. He was always on his own or with another tiler. There was never anything above his head that could fall. Nothing to bang his noddle against, yet the site foreman insisted on him wearing the hard hat continuously. My mate was happy to wear it everywhere else on the site but he, nor I could ever see the sense in being forced (threatened) about wearing it in his "own" work area.

Horses for courses again, so lets be sensible, but no point entering a donkey in the Grand National!!

Holmezy

Posted By mark limon
I can see where holmezy is coming from,if there is no need for hard hats why go to the expense and bother of introducing them to a reluctant workforce.When I go into work the Security gatemen all wear hard hats,protection against what,I have no idea.
I work in a place where the loads are almost 400 ton and the cranes are as you can imagine huge so a hard hat is of absolutely no use if they fall.
What we do find however is things falling from the gantrys or cranes themselves such as nuts,bolts that have worked loose or anything that may have been left after maintenance(shouldnt happen but does ).
Is it possible for a suspended load to go over someones head,can you guarantee the driver has full visibility at all times,is there a genuine risk?.
I suppose it comes down to if you would be comfortable explaining to the authorities if something serious happened you had took all reaonable precautions.

Posted By mark limon
I bet its the welders complaining they always do.
I served my time as an apprentice welder and worked as one for 9 years.
Joking apart I would say now that you do need to introduce hard hats taking into account the proximity of the welding bays.

Posted By Rob W
Hi Ian

I introduced hard hats into a press hall with overhead cranes moving dies of several tonnes in weight.

Most of the operators and management disagreed initialy, putting forward the argument that a hard had would not protect against such a weight. During the debate we discussed a previous accident - the maintenance manager had suffered from a broken shoulder blade when a mislaid tool fell from the die and hit him. Opinions changed and hard hats were introduced with a very good level of compliance.

Some weeks after their introduction I was asked to assist investigating a near miss, a spring operated ejection pin in one of the dies had stuck, using his trusty hammer the operator gave it a hefty whack, the pin ejected into the air and landed with a thump on top of his hard hat.

Almost certainly saved the operator from serious injury although the operator did express his displeasure as "I" had prevented him putting in a seriously large claim.

Posted By Merv Newman
Sorry to everyone for being a little bit facetious in previous postings but we have always had a policy of "lay-down and lift areas".

Trucks/lorries would be unloaded into a ropped (or is that roped ?) off area. Crane lifts would be straight up and then swing to delivery zones, dropped again to a roped off area and manhandled to where required.

Emphasis was always : "if you are there during a lift you will die. So please find another place to exercise or otherwise alleviate your physical needs"

Actual phraseology employed tended to be somewhat more succinct. (where is that spell checker when you need it ?)

Over the years we have learnt how to express this requirement in French, Spanish, Portugese, Italian, German, Xhosa and Arabic.

The Dutch, the various Scandinavians and the Belgians seem to be perfectly happy with the English version.

For Chinese and Japanese I would have to ask my wife.

But I wont.

Merv

Posted By Merv Newman
Shiela, I agree with you of course. Nobody wants to be visibly different from their colleagues. BUT. Some do. "I am not a conformist. I am ME".

Which is why some people wear their hard hats 15° to the left or 25° to the right just to show that they are individuals. Or some site managers wear a bright yellow tie with blue polka dots. (give me a name !)

What we are looking to develop is people who are proud to show that they are in a hard, dangerous job. Tough guys (and gals)

"Damn, I forget to get my copy of The Times this morning. Gotta go to the newsie. Where's me hard hat ?"

That, Shelia, is what I want to see. People in the tough, rough, dangerous jobs who are proud to wear their PPE and to show everyone at the newsie that they are a hard case.

Are you gonna argue with me ?

Come on !

Merv (kisses) (if that is not too sexist)

Posted By Merv Newman
Sheila, I may be nuts, but on a building site I actually like to wear my hard hat. No matter what floor and have you ever had to pick hardened plaster out of your partener's hair ? Worse than chewing gum and it hurts (she tells me)

And (mildish expletive deleted) the manufacturer's garantee. I like personalised HHs. I've seen some great "tats". And we just know that the owner will wear it with pride.

Especially down at the newsies.

Mind you, drilling about 100 small holes to improve the air flow was, I think, going a bit far. (Marseille, 1990)

Merv