The latest version of the International Rigging and Lifting Handbook has just been released. It has a fresh new cover and has been further fine-tuned with improved graphics, an additional note to improve the safe use of winches in congested areas (e.g. drill floor) and a complete new section on "Hands-free Lifting".

We have Shell UK and their lead Contractors (Seawell, Transocean, Schlumberger, Helix, Expro, Halliburton and BJ) to thank for sharing the learnings from their "Winch Operations Safety Improvement Project".

Their guidance is to simply cross-identify the winch with the winch wire. In hindsight, basic common sense so why wasn't this thought of before? It is simple to implement, costs are negligible but a substantial reduction in accidents should result.

Cross-identification can be achieved by numbering or lettering the winches and winch rope terminations or even better, completely painting the winches different colours and using matching coloured spiral plastic to identify the corresponding winch wire terminations.

We have BHP Billiton (Houston office) and Transocean to thank for the "Hands-free Lifting" initiative. They came up with the philosophy and we just ran with it producing guidance, posters and the now famous Push / Pull Pole.

Hands-free lifting is all about reducing accidents during lifting operations by keeping load handlers away from the load during the critical parts of the lift, i.e. lift-off and landing. This is achieved by the use of taglines and the newly NSL - designed "Push / Pull Pole".

We are grateful and delighted to be chosen by these well-respected companies to take these initiatives to the industry en-masse.

It doesn’t matter who thinks up these safety improvements, if they can improve safety in the industry in general, we are more than happy to promote them in our handbooks.

Get in touch if you can suggest any other lifting-related safety improvements and they may well make it into future editions.