21.11.2008

Summit calls for more information

The Executive summit of senior managers from North American aerial lift manufacturers and rental companies met on November 11th, to discuss the adoption of a minimum standard for operator training, along the lines of the EWPA card in Australia and the IPAF PAL card which is rapidly becoming a standard elsewhere.

The meeting was prompted by a speech made by Ken McDougall, president of Skyjack, at APEX earlier this year, in which he called for action by manufacturers to promote standardised training as the surest way to reduce accidents.
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The purpose of the November 11th meeting was to discuss how operator training standards can be raised and to investigate whether it is possible to agree on a minimum and common standard for operator training in North America.

The meeting reviewed current national and international regulations and standards, as well as hearing how other industries address training. The group felt that there were a number of issues that needed to be analysed and researched before any recommendations can be made.

Included among those issues was a review of the activities of various trade associations other than IPAF, governmental bodies, unions and others involved in operator training and benchmarking ‘best practices’.

IPAF which acted as the secretariat for this meeting agreed to facilitate future meetings and, along with volunteers from the group, work on the research requested.

The group agreed to meet again during the ARA convention and show in March in order to review the additional information. No decisions were made at this meeting.

Vertikal Comment

It is a shame that nothing came from this meeting apart from a request for more information and four months of procrastination before any decision of any kind might be taken regarding a minimum standard of operator training.

It is true that one can oversimplify the subject, but there was nothing stopping those present from at the very least acknowledging and agreeing that a minimum standard needs to be established for training. This is after all not a new subject.

The group could so easily have issued a clear statement outlining this as its aim, and even stated that all operators should be properly trained, ideally through courses meeting the ISO 18878:2004 standard.

This would have, at the very least started the ball rolling and you can be sure that if anyone had strong valid reasons why this should not be the case, the group would have been swamped with strong passionate arguments, along with alternatives for their March meeting.

It is unlikely that the information gathered will be anything like as comprehensive and as well presented as if those with an alternative view believed that a decision was on its way to being taken. We have lost an opportunity here, let’s hope that the March meeting makes more progress.