System-Safety Thinking for Dynamic Lifts

System safety pushes our team to examine interactions, not isolated hazards. Before every tandem-crane lift, we run a streamlined Hazard and Operability Study that asks what happens if high winds coincide with a telemetry dropout. The Italian risk-assessment model developed by Garcia and Bruschi (2016) ranks factors such as site accessibility and rescue response time. Our team can embed their scoring sheet in our lift plans so supervisors see at a glance when conditions push the residual risk above our “green” band.

Emergency Readiness as a Leading Indicator

The same tool highlights soft barriers, cell coverage gaps, and travel time for EMS that can make a fall arrest event fatal. By staging a satellite link at the lay-down yard and contracting a helicopter service for critical lifts, we can cut worst-case rescue time from 45 to 18 minutes, a metric that we can report weekly alongside traditional safety KPIs for the project.

Continuous Improvement Beyond Commissioning

Finally, lessons learned flow through the corporate SMS. Near-miss trends from construction (e.g., torque-tool HAV exposure) feed design reviews for the next project, ensuring our safety culture evolves with turbine technology instead of playing catch-up.

- Pru

References

Garcia, D. A., & Bruschi, D. (2016). A risk assessment tool for improving safety standards and emergency management in Italian onshore wind farms. Sustainable Energy Technologies and Assessments, 18, 48–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seta.2016.09.009

Karanikas, N., Steele, S., Bruschi, K., Robertson, C., Kass, J., Popovich, A., & MacFadyen, C. (2021). Occupational health hazards and risks in the wind industry. Energy Reports, 7, 3750–3759. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.egyr.2021.06.066