Following the overwhelmingly positive response to the launch of The Buddie System, business partners and experienced dogmen, Jade Harris and Gary Panagiotidis have been busy preparing for the arrival of the first batch of the system.
“The response to The Buddie System has been amazing but we have experienced delays in the manufacturing and we didn’t want to create any more demand until we physically had the product. So, we changed our focus and examined how best we should get The Buddie System ‘to market,’” said Gary.
“We decided to approach a number of businesses that are focused on the lifting sector and pretty much all of them came onboard as distributors. We’ve appointed nine businesses which represent over 50 branches across the country. They include Ranger Lifting, Bullivants, CERTEX, LiftQuip Australia, All Lifting, Melbourne Lifting, Barry Evans Lifting World, HES Cranes, and System Rigging. They all think The Buddie System is a great idea, and they are happy to stock, distribute and support the product,” he said.
Just about everything has an emergency stop button on it these days, so Jade and Gary developed one for dogmen – part of a system that overcomes the potential shortfalls of two-way radio failure while providing dogmen with another form of communication.
Both dogmen and crane operators rely heavily on two-way radio communication in many scenarios – but alternatives are not always so well developed.
In circumstances where something goes wrong with the two-way – such as a flat battery, frequency drop out, dropped radio or accidental channel change – or if the dogman is unable to access the two-way radio, often the only way to communicate with the crane operator is through a whistle. On large-scale projects, the whistle is often inaudible for the crane operator.
The Buddie System is designed to be even more attention-grabbing than a whistle, with the convenience of a lanyard, on which the whistle is so often attached.
“The Buddie System is designed to be ‘a redundancy safety system’ in case communication via the two-way radio fails,” said Jade.
“We’ve all experienced interference on two-ways and on occasions there can be delays in the transmission. Batteries can start beeping and go flat halfway through a lift, which can delay the signal, that’s if the signal gets through at all,” he said.
“You might have told the crane operator to bring the load down and then you’ve dropped your hand mic, and you can’t get to it. Or you could be slinging a load, and your handset gets caught somewhere in the load –which has probably happened to most of us. You then have to try to get back to that mic as quickly as you can to say stop. With The Buddie System, you have the device around your neck, you just pull it, the alarm goes off in the cab and the operator immediately stops the crane.”
Perfect Pairing
With The Buddie System, the dogman wears a lanyard around their neck, fitted with an alarm mechanism called the ‘Lanyard Device’.
The Lanyard Device is paired with a Crane Device which sits with the tower crane or mobile crane operator and the two communicate via long range (LoRa) radio frequency. In the case of an emergency, the Lanyard Device is designed to separate and trigger an audible alarm and flashing lights in the cabin, immediately alerting the operator to the problem.
“That’s the signal for a crane operator to stop all motions and get on the two-way to check if everything is OK,” Jade said.
“It could be that the dogman’s lanyard had accidentally been caught on something, and it separated, setting off the alarm. Or it could be that something has gone wrong.”
The process of pairing the Lanyard Device and Crane Device is simple. The devices are charged and then paired in one of two ways – either by physically plugging the Lanyard Device into the Crane Device or wirelessly connecting the devices together by pressing the pair button at the same time. Once the two devices are paired the lanyard’s unique identification number will be displayed on the crane device.
Once confident everyone is paired, the crane operator can climb into the crane and plug the Crane Device into the main power source. As with a radio check, there will be a lanyard check – with each dogman pulling the lanyard and setting off The Buddie System’s alarm. One simple check that it’s all working, and the day begins.
If there is a morning and afternoon shift, operators can pair up to 10 lanyards with the Crane Device. The user-friendly system also allows dogmen to unpair their lanyard from one crane and take it to another, if they are going to work with either another crane or to another job.
Jade and his crane crew have been working with the prototype of The Buddie System on a site in Melbourne.
“We had the prototypes operating and the response from the crew was better than we had expected,” he said. “We had no incidents, but the guys were reassured to have the system around their necks, just in case. I’m the leading hand with a crew of eight and they’ve all told me stories of when they could have used The Buddie System in the past.
“We did have a ‘near-miss scenario’ when we were working right across the road from the Grand Prix circuit. When the V8 supercars were racing around, and then planes flew over, one of the boys was on the radio and the operator couldn’t hear him. He’s pulled his lanyard off his neck thinking that he was still wearing The Buddie System,” said Jade.
“Being the leading hand, I didn’t want the crew to be biased I wanted their honest opinion about the system. I was wondering is it too big? Is it heavy? Does it get annoying? Does it sit on the neck? I wanted to know the ins and outs because I know we have nailed the technology part of it, but you don’t know about the usability and how it feels. We wore them on hot and cold days and the feedback was better than I expected,” he said.
Gary and Jade continue to work with the important industry groups within the crane and lifting sectors.
“We’ve been developing the relationships with various industry groups. We recently presented The Buddie System at the Victorian Tower Crane Consultative Committee meeting where the Crane Industry Council of Australia’s Brandon Hitch and Patrick Cran were in the room together with other key industry decision makers. The reception to our presentation was really positive,” said Gary.
“We recently signed up for LiftCon, The Lifting Equipment Engineers Association (LEEA) event in May and Justin Boehm (Regional Manager Australia and New Zealand) is keen for us to present The Buddie System there. He thinks it is a really innovative product.
“We’ve been working with the Crane Association of New Zealand (CANZ) where Chief Executive Officer Sarah Toase has welcomed us with open arms. She thinks it’s a great product and is looking forward to us exhibiting the Buddie System at the CANZ 50 year anniversary conference in July.”