Hi Has anyone here tangled with the British Columbia crane operator certification?I did and the results were friggin upsetting.As an owner operator of older conventional cranes involved in pile driving and construction for the last 20 yrs,i have been forced to submit to this haywire operator asesment here in BC.The so called certification assesment company readilly takes our money and then provides extremly vague details of what to prepare for in both the written exam and the practical test.Consiquently the first guys out are the guinea pigs for the others,as you can tell from my sour attitude i was the first.I believe training is good,aprenticships and all ,this system does nothing to improve operator ability or even truly assess the ability of competant operators.Its just a money grab,they even tied to hook all the union boys with that have had good training and are red seal ticketed for this nonsence.Good for them to stand up and say no.500 each for the first crack. just because you blew your 15 min chance to be a crane operator,then Another 800$ for another 15 min shot at this stupidity.Its the law in BC now,The whole thing stinks,I feel bad for the good crane men that became assessors and have to represent this rotton outfit. My 2 bits worth Dave
Here in the mid west they haven't clamped down that hard....Yet.But in my opinion its just a money deal so far.One Operator that I know personally had a several month job coming up but was a CCO required job. He drove down to Tulsa and some outfit down there basically sold him his CCO. On another deal I hauled weights for a 200 ton hydro to yet another CCO job.Oiler had his CCO but had never sat in the seat of a 200 ton demag but It was required.So the guy that was on it since it was unloaded off a ship in houston stood on the catwalk and told the oiler every move to make for 3hrs. I wish they would use it to cull out the shaky guys and be what it was suppose to be but so far its all about the money.
BC certification Hey Tugger, sorry you had such a lousy experience with H.F. I have a friend working in the Interior that was getting the runaround last year. He has another provincial ticket but with a Red Seal. At first they wanted him to pay the full assessment fee, however after the fallout with the larger companies, he only had to present his certificate verifying formal training and now he simply has to write the Worksafe BC exam. I agree, it's quite the cash grab! The original idea in principle was to test operator competancies and present tickets for either certain size cranes or certain type cranes. Unfortunately somewhere along the line a private company became involved and then money became an overriding factor. Best of luck to you and if some of your guys are having a hard time with the exams, post the problems here and perhaps we can help out.
I think the biggest problem we had with the exams was preparation.The asessment company provides the bare minimum of information to prepare guys for the exam.As a contractor /owner operator i havent written an exam since my class 1 drivers 25 years ago.I think the basis of these exams is to learn to read the instructions presented to you,as if you are an operator getting on a new unfamiliar machine.The asessment company gives you one detailed example for an American crane ,which throws some convoluted jib questions at you.In our case as marine construction contractors we have used our jib once in 15 years.This is no excuse to use the jib incorrectly ,but we did have time to read and understand the instructions presented in the manual.Being tested with time limits isnt the real world. the exam we had to do was for a 4600Manitowoc.My failure on the test was to add the lenght of line running up the boom to my gross load calculations.The asessor who i do not fault ,in the process of coaching us thru the exam mentioned that the line lenghts should be calculated asuming the full lenght of the boom.this seemed to trigger the over cautious side of writing an exam.During the marking of the exam,i removed the lenght of line from my calculation and my claculations were right on.I do know how to read a manualIf its unfamiliar it just takes more time. I know that all gross load is calculated below the point shives.After being thrown the curve on the American jib chart of doubling the weight of the ball,lines and rigging beneath the jib i spent too much time looking for that in the 4600 manual,which i had never seen before the test.I guess my point is that they should provide you with an assortment of manuals in the pre test,so you can learn to pick out the critical details in each one.After all theres not a lot of conventional crane makes out there,but we cant buy a manual to each one just to study.I feel that for what we paid ,500 $ each to the asessment company,which did a shabby job on thier end.As contractor if i did work like that i would lose my reputation.These guys have no competition and no standard to measure up to.Can you imagine being a contractor with oportunies like that!!!This set stinks! . Regards Dave
Certification Yikes It sounds like you guys got quite the lousy deal. I was under the impression that a company could apply to just have an evaluation conducted using the machines they currently operate. That way the benefit was going to the operator and the charts he was most proficient would be utilized. Based on your story I guess I got it wrong... I would suggest before you guys go for the rewrite you check out the following books and charts for conventionals: a. OETIO has a handy book for lifting and load charts, it's pocket sized called Mobile Craning Today, about $25. b. IPT Crane and Rigging is good for all your rigging questions and it too has some load chart info. c. Download a couple of charts off the internet. Specifically an American (for the infamous doubling of all tackle involving the jib when not in use ), a Link-Belt for the excess parts of line deduction (all reeved lines in excess of gross load are considered a deduction) and a Manitowoc for plain old line weight deductions. That should cover anything they might give you. Oh, and don't forget to always verify the number of parts of line you are reeved up with!! Did they have any site restriction questions?