Oshkosh Corp. Global Headquarters
Oshkosh, Wis.
Best Project
Owner: Oshkosh Corp.
Lead design firm: Performa Inc.
General Contractor: Miron Construction Co.
Structural Engineer: Performa Inc.
To safely deliver a new global headquarters for Oshkosh Corp., Miron Construction made it a priority to reduce the use of scaffolding and ladders, opting instead to put its own craftspeople and its subcontractors in aerial lifts. “Just about everything on the exterior except the masonry work was done off lifts,” says Matthew Frey, project manager with Miron Construction.
Although Frey says the use of lifts reduced risks, the team also had to account for added traffic as lifts and other equipment moved around this four-story structure. Paths were created for equipment movement. Perimeters were set up around lifts and taped off to direct movement of people and equipment away from lifts.
“At times, we had seven or eight boom lifts in addition to crawler cranes,” Frey says. “Everyone had to have a heightened level of awareness. When a lift is elevated, it’s easy for a forklift to want to go under it. If we were extending high, we forced traffic around.”
Miron had a full-time risk steward on the project to lead the safety charge. The steward worked in tandem with a regional risk control manager to develop and deliver daily site-specific safety orientations to more than 500 employees, vendors and visitors.
The risk steward also worked directly with the entire workforce on proactive safety measures such as “excellence huddles,” morning stretches, coordinating hot work and elevated work activities and performing safety audits.
Hands-on training courses included first aid/CPR, rigging, signal person, forklift and aerial lift. For aerial lift training, Miron was able to work with manufacturer JLG, which is a subsidiary of Oshkosh Corp.
At the peak of construction, Miron partnered with the local OSHA office and a fall protection equipment manufacturer to participate in a week-long OSHA National Stand Down for Fall Prevention. Employees received training on proper ladder use; fall arrest equipment inspection and use; and rescue plan development while working at heights. The team went above and beyond OSHA standards, requiring the use of personal fall arrest systems even while working in scissor lifts.
Miron’s crews performed 194,700 worker hours on the 15-month project with no lost-time accidents and no recordable incidents.
