15 September 2024
3 min read
#Construction, Infrastructure & Projects, #Workplace Relations & Safety
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Third party attachments and modifications are everywhere in the Elevating Work Platforms (EWP) industry, from simple pipe racks and anchor points to comprehensive secondary guarding and electronic sensors.
While these post-manufacture enhancements can make life easier and safer for operators and hirers alike, introducing and using them without a comprehensive eye to their safe use can create new risks at the same time as they fix old risks.
Hire companies are the meat in the safety sandwich as users evolve to using new equipment, so while your safety obligations and liabilities might be shared if multiple parties are involved in the modification process, they do not go away.
Any EWP that enters the marketplace has already undergone rigorous engineering assessments, design registration, safe work assessments and operational documentation. These processes ensure that manufacturers, owners, hirers and operators have taken all reasonably practicable steps to ensure the safety of all those involved in the EWP’s operations.
Once a platform is modified after manufacture, it becomes a new piece of equipment that may need to undergo a fresh round of safety checks again. That means you need to ensure:
When you supply or use a modified equipment, as operator or dry hirer, you are effectively asserting that all practicable steps have been taken to ensure that the use of the new modified equipment will not create risks to health and safety. This means you are responsible for bringing together the old plant, the modification, the third party supplier and the review process for the new modified plant.
As always, with responsibility comes liability. If a modification contributes to an accident and you have not had confirmation from the third party manufacturer or OEM that the modified equipment has been properly assessed, you could be held liable along with the manufacturer and designer because you have not taken all reasonably practicable steps to ensure safe operation of the equipment.
Likewise, failing to modify manuals and hiring documentation to ensure users know how the modification changes the safe work methods for the plant, can render the hirer liable even if the delay in changing your manuals has been caused by the manufacturer’s delay in getting the information to you.
The extent of the steps you, as a hirer or operator, need to take to meet your legal obligations will depend on the significance of the modification and how it could be used or misused. While your hiring documents may limit your contractual liabilities to clients, your fundamental safety obligation to take all practicable steps, and the liabilities that flows from it, remains unchanged, even when using modified equipment.
If you have any questions about your work health and safety obligations as a manufacturer or hirer, please get in touch with our team below.
This article was originally published in Hire & Rental news.
Disclaimer
The information in this article is of a general nature and is not intended to address the circumstances of any particular individual or entity. Although we endeavour to provide accurate and timely information, we do not guarantee that the information in this article is accurate at the date it is received or that it will continue to be accurate in the future.
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