Hire and Rental News - Access in Action -November 2018

ACCESS in ACTION president's message NOVEMBER 2018 VOL 20 NO 2 ELEVATING WORK PLATFORM ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA INC ABN 32 545 830 419 EWPA BOARD OF DIRECTORS President: Doug Rawlings Tel: 08 6166 9800 Vice President:Tim Nuttall Tel: 03 9547 7700 Past President: Rick Mustillo Tel: 02 9817 7610 Chief Executive Officer: James Oxenham Tel: 0410 704 979 Operations Director: Nicolas Chiew Tel: 0410 468 468 NSW President: John Glover Tel: 0419 663 863 VIC President: Keith Clarke Tel: 0400 369 900 QLD President: Richard Gannon Tel: 0437 477 279 SA President: Jason Gaskin Tel: 08 8449 0500 WA President: Will Reilly Tel: 0408 474 261 TECHNICAL DIRECTOR – OPERATIONS Peter Davis Tel: 02 8796 50551 TECHNICAL DIRECTOR – ENGINEERING Peter Wenn Tel: 03 9568 7211 COMMITTEE Dean Halliwell Tel: 0408 403 783 Bob Mules Tel: 0402 982 999 James Nightingale Tel: 1800 457 145 TELESCOPIC HANDLER ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA (TSHA) PRESIDENT: Chris Taylor Tel: 0448 450 132 EWPA & TSHA PO Box 1304, Mona Vale NSW 1660 Tel: 02 9998 2222 Email: info@ewpa.com.au Web: www.ewpa.com.au Opinions published in Hire and Rental News do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the association or the Editor. The HRIA accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any information contained in this magazine and readers should rely upon their own enquiries in making decisions related to their own interest. All rights reserved. ISSN 1838-1197 It has been 12 months since I was elected President of the EWPA and in that 12 months we have had some interesting times within the industry. We have had construction demands on modifying speed specifications on scissor lifts; we have had safety concerns with products; and we have had the excitement of new initiatives from the EWPA which will benefit our industry and our members in the future. This year EWPA created its first Global exchange and two candidates have gone through the program with glowing reports. Thanks to Horizon Platforms in the UK, Kennards Hire and Vic Access for supporting the exchange. This is a great opportunity for young professionals to experience the access industry in different countries and share ideas and learnings from the exchange. We have been updating documents and creating new ones to assist end users such as the Harness Anchorage guidance note and the Licencing and training matrix. The Global Access meeting in May was well received by Australian and International attendees. This provided a forum for presentations and discussions around incident reporting, training, secondary guarding, industry standards, harmonisation and operational challenges. We have received some feedback from CPB on their scissor lift trial. There are still several questions about the trial we want to clarify before we inform our members of any findings or CPB’s position, so as soon as the EWPA has anything more to report we will let our members know. The EWPA has written a procedure for dealing with reported machine faults, incidents, accidents and information coming to us from the access industry; and communicating that to our members. The procedure is in Draft form and ready for Board approval shortly. Initiatives On 27 June the Board met for a day long strategy meeting. We were assisted by a facilitator, and we worked toward a strategic plan for the direction of the EWPA over the next five years. We came to an agreement on the investments we will need to undertake in the future to Global exchange, safety and Association initiatives support our membership and the whole MEWP industry. In short, those investments will be in marketing, industry education, training, digital technology, local and global alliances, and staffing resources. Our end goal is we can be recognised by businesses, rental companies, suppliers, Tier 1 construction companies, unions, regulators, trainers, equipment owners and end users; as the ‘go to’ organisation within our industry. On 28 June, the Board met for our face-to- face Board meeting and I had the pleasure to welcome new Board members Jason Gaskin and James Nightingale to their first face-to-face Board meeting. Other new initiatives were discussed such as ‘Online Renewal’ of expired Yellow Cards, Transport Training and Chain of Responsibility (which will be rolled out later this year), Supervisor and Advanced Boom courses. Good news from the financial report, as it sees the Association is in a strong financial position. This will allow us to continue to invest and complete our many strategic goals, initiatives and support for the access industry. Conclusion Thank you all for supporting the EWPA. It is a very worthy Association which has had a positive influence on the mobile elevating work platform industry. I would like to thank James Oxenham and his dedicated staff, plus my fellow Board members, for the work they have done, to have the Association in the strong, proactive position we see today. Doug Rawlings EWPA National President Doug Rawlings 28 ACCESS IN ACTION • NOVEMBER 2018