Leading US crane hire and rigging business, PSC Crane and Rigging, realised pinpoint accuracy in depicting multiple crane locations at a recent jobsite using A1A 3D Lift Plan.
Tom Robinson, Crane Estimator for Piqua, Ohio-based PSC Crane & Rigging, was named a finalist in the 2018 Lift Plan of the Year competition for his use of 3D Lift Plan for the construction of Adrian Hospital. He used the lift planning software to show the customer the various locations where the crane would be moved on a new-construction jobsite.
Robinson employed 3D Lift Plan from the very first conversation with the general contractor. “We took drawings from the foundation and structural package and scaled them in 3D, then began dissecting the site to determine our most efficient plan to work around the site,” he explained.
“The plan was then taken to the customer and GC to complete their internal crane permitting/lift planning requirements. Once the pre-job portion was fine-tuned, we handed the crane plans to our operator to communicate setup positions and what portions of the building could be covered.”
The software program proved to be an excellent tool to evaluate the work site set-up and allowed his team to pre-plan even before the site evaluation took place. “We were able to determine how many cranes we’d need, where we’d have to place the crane or cranes, and we were able to communicate all that to the GC for their approval. We drew the entire site and crane locations in 3D Lift Plan,” said Robinson.
Since there were some longer lifts on this particular job, and two hoists would be needed to avoid damaging the customer’s materials, Robinson’s team determined that PSC Crane’s 165-tonne crane would be the best fit. “Once we sized the crane, we used the multiple crane option on the lift plan to establish some idea of working range to install the materials most efficiently,” he explained. That use of 3D Lift Plan allowed us to show what our reachability would be from all different positions. We could pinpoint locations and economize the positions we would use,” he said.
The multiple crane option of the program allows the user to place multiple cranes on the same jobsite rendering to identify the best location and configuration, without having to move the same machine around in the model.
“At this point we shared our drawings with the customer and arranged for a site visit. The General Contractor had some trouble spots on the site where the crane would not be able to set up without extensive site work. By walking the job and identifying alternate locations, we quickly adjusted our site plans to avoid the low-lying areas and revised the drawing to communicate that to the customer and site.”
The PSC team was also able to use the rigging plan to work through various lifting options to make sure that the customer’s product was being built properly. “That job is a good example of what we were able to accomplish using 3D Lift Plan,” recalls Robinson. “Because the building panels were being assembled with a method that neither our customers nor we had encountered before, we were able to pinpoint where and how to best lift them. We were then able to plug into a custom plan to demonstrate that to our customer.”
By having the ability to work through all of these issues while the building structure was coming out of the ground, Robinson’s team eliminated many unnecessary delays on the jobsite. “Without 3D Lift Plan there would be no way to have all of this information compiled into a single resource that has the detail and flexibility to present consumable information not only to the crane company as a planning resource, but also to the customer and site for their documentation and safety needs,” stressed Robinson.