Overhead crane safety is at the core of the work of the Crane Manufacturers Association of America (CMAA). However, this committee of “friendly competitors” does not merely replicate the work of federal regulators. Rather, the group sees its role as an enhancer of knowledge when it comes to understanding the nuances of overhead traveling cranes and gantry cranes.
While OSHA and ANSI focus on creating safety standards, CMAA’s standards help provide design elements, said Molly Wood, president of CMAA and engineering manager for MHI member Ace Industries. “It looks at allowable stresses and fatigue limits for cranes.”
The role is specific to the crane world, something that steel standards and machinist handbooks don’t delve into, Wood said. “Cranes are a unique entity: structural, mechanical and electrical that work in tandem.”
CMAA Authors Design and Technical Specs
CMAA focuses its work on writing design specs, with some 50 engineering and technical specs to its credit. Consequently, most of its meetings are spent in engineering breakouts, reviewing, revising and improving specs to account for new features, Wood said.
“We’re a growing, healthy organization,” said Jeff McNeill, vice president of CMAA and VP of marketing and innovation for MHI member Gorbel. “There’s been a lot of interest in overhead crane safety. We create standards for products that outline design and safety and publish standards so that people have something to help them define what is going to be acceptable and safe products to buy.”
While keeping workers safe is at the core of the effort, the fact that cranes are often near and lifting over expensive warehouse equipment brings an extra level of concern in warehouses, McNeill said.
The organization releases new standards about every five years. The next round should be available in the fall of 2025. Currently, the revisions are in process, with a focus on accounting for new crane features. CMAA members will receive the documents for review in spring.
“It’s a long process,” McNeill noted.
Revised Standards Focus on New Features, Applications
Not everything made it into the 2025 revisions and work begins soon on those for the next cycle, Wood said. New features tend to focus on electrical, with the option for additional features. “With structure, how you put steel together is not wildly different from one year to the next.”
Innovations on the electrical side tend to be “fairly incremental,” McNeill explained. “It’s tweaks, modifications, some added content. The underlying technology doesn’t change so quickly that we’re playing a constant catch‑up game.”
Still, there is plenty of work to do in responding to industry questions about these types of cranes. Jib cranes, for instance, have been around for a while, but lacked standards. CMAA has created them. “We finally reached the point where enough people were asking,” he continued.
CMAA has been around since 1927, when it was founded as the Electric Overhead Crane Institute. It adopted the CMAA name in 1955. Over the years, there haven’t been dramatic changes in the overarching technology of this type of crane. “What does change a lot is how member companies apply the technology,” McNeill said. “There’s a lot of innovation in that. In our business, the number of really unique solutions that we can come up with using our products to solve very specific applications is amazing.”
Crane Applications Get Creative
Wood describes one project where “we’re going over one thing and under another. We had to get creative in how we did it. Sometimes a run‑of‑the‑mill crane, cookie cutter and plain, works. But at least 20 percent of the time, something standard isn’t going to work. It becomes a challenge to find the right combination of products and components. If you can dream it up, we can figure out how to build it.”
Each project is different because of the type of objects moved, the congested warehouse operations and the basics of “fitting a box in a box,” McNeill said. “You have to come up with a solution that fits in the space and meets all the criteria.”
Because of the uniqueness of each situation, knowing that components meet design standards is even more critical. Worker safety is vital, but so too is preventing damage to nearby equipment. “We’re working around expensive machines,” Wood said. “The crane is not unusual, but the products they’re making or the machines underneath are so specialized, you can’t have something that just falls off.”
While standards and design specs are an important and ongoing work, CMAA members also benefit from education, which builds upon “OSHA standards to help companies out,” she noted, adding that education sessions are offered a couple of times per year. Topics may range from using hoists to when and why inspections are needed. “These really are geared toward the end user.”
It is just another component of CMAA’s work to ensure that overhead crane safety is paramount during construction, installation, and operation.
Learn More About CMAA’s Overhead Crane Safety Standards
For additional information about CMAA and the standards it develops to improve overhead crane safety, visit mhi.org/cmaa.
