We've owned aerial work platforms before," says Stan Blankenship, superintendent at Norshipco in Norfolk, Va. "But it just didn't pay off for us. When we had breakdowns, we had to divert personnel to repair the equipment rather than working on ships, parts were sometimes hard to get and operational training was an issue that we weren't dealing with properly.

"So we decided to find a company that could get us the machines we needed, provide the service required to keep them running reliably and give our workers training to operate the equipment properly and safely. What we needed was a comprehensive package that would get us booms and could be counted on to do it reliably and safely. When we talked with United Rentals (formerly Industrial Lift Equipment) of Newport News, Va., we found that they could give us everything we wanted - machines, service and training."

United Rentals recommended a three-part contract rather than a traditional "lease only" contract that would include the lease of Snorkel telescopic booms, use of Snorkel's operator training capabilities and a scheduled maintenance program. Norshipco is now halfway through the three-year agreement, which is proving to be a winner for everybody involved.

Take a look at the picture above and you can see why Norshipco wanted telescopic booms. They needed a lot of mobility - including the capability of driving the boom at full height extension - plus plenty of working height and horizontal reach. All this together contributes to significant gains in productivity.

The contract started with 11 new Snorkel TB 60 telescoping booms that were shipped directly from the factory to Norshipco.

Norshipco is a division of United States Marine Repair, the largest non-nuclear ship repair company in the United States. The company specializes in conversion, overhaul, modernization and maintenance of government and commercial ships and has the largest non-nuclear shipyard on the East Coast.

Aerial work platforms are used 95 percent of the time for recoating ship exteriors - pressurized grit-blasting, power washing and re-painting - and because of all the particulate matter, humidity, heat, confined working area and salt air, the work is particularly hard on telescopic booms.

Example: Norshipco's Snorkel booms are fitted with Deutz air-cooled engines with a 12-stage filter at the air intake to prevent contaminates from entering the engine. Air-cooled engines work better in this environment, since radiators in liquid-cooled engines frequently get clogged with paint and dust particles, restricting air flow and causing engines to overheat.

For scheduled maintenance and repairs, United Rentals has a mechanic on site at the Hampton Roads shipyard for one shift a day, at its own expense as part of the contract. Any repairs at time other than normal business hours are billed to Norshipco.

United Rentals mechanic Joe Carr is one of the reasons the contract is working so well. Carr is an experienced construction equipment mechanic. He works a standard eight-hour day shift at Hampton Roads and shares off-hour duty with four other mechanics on a rotational basis.

Norshipco uses the Snorkel booms three shifts a day, so in preventive maintenance alone there is plenty to do - cleaning air filters, changing oil and filters, greasing machines and checking the cables, limit switches, safety switches and controls.

Carr also re-routed the air intakes on the machines by adding a section of marine hose so air is taken in near the ground rather than the top and the engines can breathe cleaner air.

A ship in dry dock is useless, so shipyards put fast turnaround as the No. 1 priority. If one company bids 44 days for a repair job and another bids 45, the shorter bid usually gets the job. And if the job runs over the 44 days specified, there are severe penalties. Keeping equipment running properly around the clock is of paramount importance.

Orchestrating repair and maintenance as part of the rental contract is working well. For the three years prior to leasing the Snorkel TB 60s from United Rentals, Norshipco had 465 change orders for repairs. In the first 18 months of the new contract, there have only been 13 repair orders.

To fulfill the training portion of the contract, United Rentals delivered Snorkel's computer-based interactive training program to the shipyard and worked with Blankenship so, in turn, he could train operators.

Snorkel's CD-ROM training program contains instructional information regarding the safe operation of aerial work platforms using audio narration and illustrations that show proper operating procedures. Each instructional segment is followed by questions to make sure the instructions were understood. The respondent types in the answer. The questions are multiple choice, so computer skills aren't necessary beyond being able to type a, b, c or d. If the respondent doesn't answer correctly, the program repeats itself for a fixed number of times until the answers are correct, or shuts down. When the responses are correct, the training continues. Each segment can be completed in just over eight minutes. The trainee can operate the program on a self-paced basis after entering identification. In compliance with ANSI requirements, the software is designed to maintain a permanent record containing the name of the trainee, test results and date.

The CD-ROM streamlined Blankenship's training program. Previously he had to conduct safety training sessions in large groups of 20. With this system, he trained 800 operators in 18 months and was able to offer individualized training whenever it was required.

No one is allowed to operate the booms at Norshipco without a Certificate of Completion card.

Copyright © 1999 American Rental Association. All rights reserved.