We Flew 16,000 miles for 44 hours … Just for a Site Inspection!

To some, it may seem crazy to fly that far just to look at a job, particularly as communication is so ‘hi-tech’ today. However, having been in heavy lifting, completing machinery removals and installations – from injection moulders and crematoriums to 150-tonne transformers and bridges,  for the past 30 years, I’ve lost count of how many times that, had we not completed a site visit prior to starting the job, we’d have had serious problems. Problems that could have stopped the project in its tracks, which would have cost the client a great deal of time and money.

So, here’s the picture. We take off from the airport - 22 hours later, after one refuelling stop, we land 8000 miles away. One day later we take off again, fly for 22 hours again and land back in the UK.

When people ask why a site visit is necessary, the most important word is ‘because’. On this particular contract, because if we had accepted at face value what we’d been told, and the information we’d been sent, the job could not have been completed and the waste of resources and energy would have been horrendous.

The contract was to unload five new 55-tonne generator engines, move them into a building and place them accurately for installation. Bread and butter stuff to Projector Lifting Service.

There were three cranes onsite with differing capacities; 50 tonnes, 80 tonnes and 100 tones, which is great, no problem at all but we still had to physically check the shackle blocks available for the cranes had the necessary. The test certificates for the cranes also had to be validated ... you'd be surprised how often they're out of date.

It was also discovered that we needed steel plating to spread the load and enable the engines to be transported over ground trenches and into the interior of the building.

Because we’d completed a thorough, well planned site inspection, reviewed everything against the project plan and checked all aspects, we were able to send all the kit we needed by sea freight in advance of the start of the project.

We flew in, completed the project, which was signed off as 100% perfect and we flew back out again. Had we not completed the site inspection, and done it properly, it would have been impossible to complete without major delays and huge expense for the client.

This is just one example that just happened to be 8000 miles away, there are many, many more that are in the UK where the implications are equally likely to cause a delay or be equally as expensive.

So, why can site visits be so critical and important?

Because…