Borger Crane Hire and Rigging recently collaborated with Andromeda Industries on a lift which highlighted the strength and flexibility of Andromeda’s Superflex strops and Borger’s ability to engineer lifts and manage rigging equipment. Borger’s Hazel McGuinness, Rigging Manager, and Stephen Bush, Drafting Manager explain more.
The drafting and rigging teams at Borger Crane Hire are significant with six draftsmen working out of the Sydney yard, two in Botany, one in Newcastle and one in Queensland. There are seven members of the rigging team in Sydney, including driver, and there are rigging managers in each yard.
Hazel explains how her role works when Borgers is preparing for a lift.
“Before every lift, I usually receive a lift study from the crane supervisor once Stephen and his team of drafters have prepared their lift plans. I will confirm availability of the rigging gear required for the lift and then take the list to our team in the yard to get everything prepared and ready. Our rigging yard team also includes several trainees. They put all the gear together in rigging boxes that get sent to site with the crane,” said Hazel.
She explained the processes involved to ensure the rigging equipment is compliant and fit for purpose.
“There are a few steps to ensure everything is compliant and in date when it goes out. We keep an Excel spreadsheet which tracks what’s in and what’s out of date, and when the teams are loading the boxes, they double check each item to make sure the rigging tags are current, and the gear is in date. A visual check for any damage is also done, we pull any unsatisfactory equipment aside for further checking and recertification.
“It can be a big juggling act, but we are automating the process with a barcode system which will mean we will scan the items when they go out and the information goes straight into our allocation system. But currently, I keep a record on an Excel spreadsheet of what goes in and out, and update this on a daily basis. All the crane bookings are managed through Allocate, all the associated rigging and crane-related equipment also goes through that same booking,” she said.
Hazel has been with Borger Crane Hire for almost a year and is very impressed with the culture within the business.
“Borgers is a very dynamic, family-owned business which is undergoing constant growth, it is a great place to work. One of my brothers works here as a mechanic and he’s been here a long time. Everyone is really friendly, if you have questions, they are quite happy to answer them. Not having had any experience in lifting before joining the company, I had many questions in the beginning and everyone has been happy to help. Everyone works well together which is really good,” she said.
Stephen has been with Borgers for 15 years.
“Much like Hazel’s brother, I feel part of the furniture. I look after the team of drafters here in Sydney as best I can, alongside Kane Fuller who came onboard with the recent acquisition of Melrose Crane Hire. I got into cranes through a mutual friend who recommended me to Nathan Borger. I got the phone call and originally came in for a six-week contract and they put me on full-time straight away, and I’m still here.
“I’ve seen quite a bit of change in that time. 15 years ago, we dreamed of the size and capacity of cranes that we’re now working with, and it has been a little bit of a struggle at times to keep up with developments. But having a good team of knowledgeable people around me certainly helped. My main supervisor (Matthew Steain) has many years of crane industry experience including driving cranes, planning jobs and rigging. That experience really assists in planning the job. I don’t get to site very often, and he is my link between what’s actually happening and what I’m looking at in the lift plan. Having the knowledge base with experienced people in all roles certainly helps,” said Stephen.
He explains how he and his team manage the early stages of a project, the weights of the lift, the radius at which the crane will be lifting and which crane(s) will be required.
“In the initial planning of a lift study we make some assumptions because the information we’re given is not always confirmed. For example a client will have to lift an item X that weighs somewhere between X and Y tonnes. We will try and look into what information we have available to see what we can use to perform that lift safely and make a reasonable assumption on lifting gear required.
“Obviously it depends on how far out the project is. If the lift’s happening next week, more information is available and a lot more accurate. I’ve prepared a number of lift plans in the past with cranes that we didn’t even own because we didn’t have the lifting capacity in our fleet. But we did look at what crane would actually be needed to do that job and then work around that,” he said.
Stephen explains how he and his team remain open-minded when preparing lift plans.
“Sometimes, the initial concepts don’t end up being the best way to do the job, and then other times a budget restraint might be an issue. For instance, I was planning a job recently where the client’s initial concept was to lift a whole span of girders from one position which meant a larger capacity crane was required.
“We could do the job with a smaller crane, but obviously there would be a bit more time involved in repositioning around deliveries. The actual delivery schedule meant only two or three girders a day were going to be delivered to the bridge and there’s no point in having a massive crane sitting there if you are only putting in three girders in a day.
“From that point of view, my rigging stays the same, it’s just that the crane itself potentially changes.
“Either the entire crane or crane combination, we might go from a luff to superlift, which might be easier to move or require less counterweight, for example. We are always looking into all the different aspects of site constraints, delivery constraints, and also crane availability which does create curveballs. A job date might move – it could be due to the weather or the casting of girders – and we might plan a job for a certain size crane, but when it’s actually time to do it, that crane is not available, so we have to pick something else that we can configure to give a similar result,” said Stephen.
Hazel goes on to discuss the rigging equipment used during the lift with Andromeda Industries.
“We used what is called a CMOD bar which we don’t really use too often. It was quite interesting for me, because I haven’t seen one used before.
“We normally put all the rigging together, but we don’t actually see what it looks like all rigged up and ready to go. We get all the information from the supervisors about what we need to put together for the lift, and the team in the yard put it all together and have it all ready to go,” she said.