Updates from IPAF’s MCWP council

The IPAF (International Powered Access Federation) Summit in London, UK was the venue for a joint meeting of the IPAF MCWP International Committee and the IPAF MCWP and Hoist UK and Ireland Work Group.

Photo: Hydro Mobile

Respective Chairs Kevin O’Shea (International Committee) and Darren Brady (UK Work Group) hosted an international group of members from various countries including USA, Canada, UK, Italy and Spain to discuss industry issues and opportunities to influence industry safety performance.

TRAINING NUMBERS

Training is back up to pre-Covid numbers in all markets with international training becoming a more significant percentage of IPAF training year on year.

The uptake of IPAF’s new ePAL (electronic Powered Access License) has been extremely encouraging and IPAF is moving quickly towards its ePAL target for 2022 of 70% of all Powered Access Licenses being in the digital format.

IPAF has seen ePAL activity in 123 countries.

IPAF RENTAL+ for MCWP’s and Hoists

Members were interested to hear about the possibility of extending IPAF’s Rental+ accreditation to MCWP’s and Hoists.

• The Rental+ Standard provides assurance to user companies via:
• A Quality Standard Mark
• The powered access industry’s guarantee of quality supply in the rental sector
• Proof that a rental company has been independently audited and meets rigorous standards of training, equipment inventory and customer satisfaction.

APPRENTICESHIP ROADMAP FOR MCWPs AND HOISTS

With the powered access industry in general facing a lack of expertise and knowledge in the technical field it is critical to provide a route for young people to enter the powered access world with the benefit of an ‘industry-specific’ training and education program which will create a path for advancement, accelerated learning and ultimately a supply of qualified industry expertise to take powered access into the future.

IPAF’s apprenticeship roadmap discussion for MCWP’s and Hoists is both timely and critical.

The MCWP members were encouraged that IPAF is addressing urgent industry needs and they were excited to get involved.

ISO STANDARDS AFFECTING MCWP’s AND HOISTS

Dan Moss, IPAF’s Global Technical Standards Expert had provided a standards update for the committee and highlighted the fact that the International Standard for Mast Climbing Work Platforms, ISO 16369:2007, was due for systematic review.

Members were in consensus that the standard needs to be updated, and a number of members present volunteered to begin the review process.

The committee members were interested in the ISO as a way to provide clarity to regulators who are looking for guidance and who are working with other country standards (CSA, BS, EN, ANSI etc) which, depending on what country they are working in, may not provide all the relevant national regulation they need.

It may also provide the opportunity for manufacturers to address cross-border compliance challenges.

STANDARD INDUSTRY TEMPLATES FOR MCWP DAILY AND WEEKLY INSPECTIONS

The MCWP industry has a number of documents which are important to the safe use, planning and maintenance aspects of the products’ use. Two such documents are the daily (pre-use) and weekly inspections.

Completed by the user company while the mcwp equipment is in use on the jobsite, these documents are vital to verify the condition of the equipment, highlight any areas of concern and provide equipment owners and rental companies with the opportunity to address issues quickly.

Members felt there was a need to look at using standardized industry documents to provide comprehensive, consistent guidance for users.

WORKING AGREEMENT BETWEEN SAIA AND IPAF

The Committee also reviewed the agreement between the SAIA (Scaffold and Access Industry Association) and IPAF and the agreement was very positively received.

Members felt that the industry only benefits from cross country collaboration and with the revised interest in the review of the ISO for MCWP’s, the proposed standardization of the Daily and Weekly inspection formats, the possibility of Rental+ for MCWP’s and a roadmap to industry apprenticeships, the industry was becoming more cohesive and more prepared for the next stage of development.