Specialized Carriers To Update Exxon Crane Guide
A respected crane-management tome is soon to receive a much-needed update to make it compliant with current industry standards and safety codes, according to trade group and publisher Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association.
The 120-page book, titled "Exxon Crane Guide: Lifting System Management System," was first published in 1998, and SC&RA has since sold thousands of copies to owners, engineers, contractors, suppliers and others across the construction industry. It details best practices for safe lifting, with charts and forms to help users plan and execute a successful pick.
Its contents grew outdated, however, as industry standards changed. When the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration released its new cranes and derricks standard in 2010, SC&RA officials decided to pull the $75 title from the association's bookstore.
"We didn't want to sell something that was out of date," said Beth O'Quinn, vice president of SC&RA, on April 23 at the group's annual meeting in Boca Raton, Fla. The association stopped selling the book in 2012 and began drafting an update with the working title "SC&RA Guide to Mobile Crane Safety Management."
The revision was "started from scratch," O'Quinn said, adding that it will include new material written by the guide's original authors. The book will contain broader best practices beyond oil-and-gas projects and will no longer be published in partnership with ExxonMobil.
Management guidelines called for in the new book will be less prescriptive, O'Quinn said. For example, industry standards do not clearly define when a formal lift plan is required. That level of detail is usually left to the company performing the lift. The existing Exxon guide, however, defines a critical lift as a situation where the load consumes more than 90% of a crane's rated-capacity chart.
"We want to make sure that it doesn't put any undue burden on the industry or our members," said O'Quinn, adding that the new SC&RA guide will help firms establish such metrics on their in line with current standards and codes.
SC&RA officers plan to release the updated management guide by the third quarter of this year, with a companion field guide to follow soon after. Pricing has not yet been announced.
The so called "center of gravity" has been out of date since Sir issac Newton's masterwork separating weight from mass. Lord Kelvin back in 1879 suggested substituting "center of mass" ...
While the crane and derrick standard not recognize mass in its standard, it gives a surreal definition of the "center of gravity" that defies explanation as to how it got into the standard, let alone manage to stay in after the standard was given what is supposed to be an extensive review and vetting to wit here is its witless "definition"
The center of gravity of any object is the point in the object around
which the weight is evenly distributed. If you could put a support
under that point, you could balance the object under that point.
The center of mass isn't necessarily in the object, "evenly distributed" is
worthless without specifying what "evenly distributed means", the prohibition against the possibility of putting a support under the center of "gravity" is practically false, and the "balance" the definition mentions may be unstable
if the object is top heavy and is supported from below (as has just been announced with the South Korean Ferry Tragedy).
Nathan Bailey gave a definition of the center of gravity back in 1675 as"that point from which if a body were suspended all its parts would be in equilibrium". It is not enough for a body to be balanced- it must be stable as the crane and derrick standard does not recognize.
More and more I am forming an opinion that our standards should be far less prescriptive than they are and our licensing far more rigorous,
The center of gravity "definition" is not some subtle error that can be easily missed - it is so absurd not merely false but absurd- that it should have caught
the attention of a single eye let alone the many eyes that examined the standard.
