Rigging and lifting safely: Turning Performance

The ability to safely and quickly handle and secure loads is an integral part of the entire job process. The more efficient your handling, the faster you’ll complete the job.

Rigging deals with setup and equipment, leading to the lifting event. In the olden days, riggers were the guys on the ground placing slings and chains around the object to be moved while the crane operator waited for their signals to begin lifting. Today, rigging in a small shop falls to the guys standing closest to the equipment when something needs to be moved.

Courtesy of All images: T. Lipton

When operating a forklift, always place a piece of wood between each fork blade and the object being moved.

A lifting lug without a hole can be quickly and easily formed from flat bar stock by creating two equal bends.

A lifting lug works with wire or rope slings.

Humans are basically weak animals. Without our tools and machines, we are just hairless primates with no particular strengths other than our big brains. Rigging and lifting in the shop requires brains. Cranes and forklifts seem like pretty simple machines that anybody should be able to use without difficulty, which is pretty far from the truth.

The simplest machines and processes can cause the most trouble. The ease with which you can move an object that weighs several tons, with no sensation of weight or even effort, disguises the seriousness of these operations. The equipment is taken for granted—and that is when the trouble starts.