New Directory Helps Employers Find Most-Similar Crane Operator Certification

 Aug. 25, 2020 - The NCCCO Foundation’s new online Most Similar Certifications Directory helps employers select the most appropriate operator certification for a crane when no specific accredited certification is available.

“OSHA anticipated this service being needed when it included the provision in the operator qualifications rule that if no accredited testing agency offered a certification for a particular type of crane, an operator would be deemed qualified if he or she had been certified for the type that was most similar to the crane for which a certification was available,” said NCCCO Foundation CEO, Graham Brent. “Hence the name of the new directory.”

Brent added that OSHA’s preamble to the crane-operator rule said the agency didn’t believe it was in the best position to determine the various types of cranes for which certifications should be necessary. That was why NCCCO created the Crane Type Advisory Group (CTAG), a committee of seasoned crane professionals that had decades of collective experience with cranes of all types and in a host of industries and applications.

OSHA has also stated it would be “unwise” for the agency to consider a major change to the standard “before the NCCCO Crane Type Advisory Group concluded its work.” CTAG was formed in 2017, and over the last three years has refined the process by which these determinations could be made, Brent said.

CTAG has met over a dozen times and made determinations about more than 20 specific crane types and/or crane installations in response to requests from employers, training firms, regulators, and other industry stakeholders. A full listing of CTAG’s “most similar” determinations can be found at  www.ncccofoundation.org/most-similar. 

Background to the OSHA Crane Operator Certification Rule and the rationale for the establishment of CTAG can be found at: http://www.ncccofoundation.org/directory-of-most-similar-certifications.

And a full listing of the crane subject matter experts who serve on the CTAG committee is available here: http://www.ncccofoundation.org/who-is-the-crane-type-advisory-group.

“CTAG meets regularly and on an as-needed basis,” said Brent, “in response to specific requests for determinations.  Anyone not finding a particular type of crane in the Directory is encouraged to contact the committee at cranetype@ncccofoundation.org.