Staying grounded even at altitude

Dur­ing a demon­stra­tion run as part of the DGUV “Aer­i­al Work Plat­forms” train­er train­ing course, Matthias Müller for­got to test the emer­gency stop func­tion, got stuck with the scis­sor lift on sev­er­al cones and hit his head on a roof beam of the train­ing hall. The acad­e­my direc­tor did a lot of things wrong dur­ing the demon­stra­tion — and thus every­thing right. After all, his goal was to train the par­tic­i­pants to eval­u­ate test rides in every detail. This will be part of their dai­ly rou­tine after receiv­ing their certificate. 

Comprehensive starter package

After sev­er­al days of the­o­ret­i­cal and prac­ti­cal train­ing at the mod­ern “Cam­pus M — Home of Safe­ty.” at the com­pa­ny’s head­quar­ters in Blaustein, they are allowed to instruct and train oper­a­tors of aer­i­al work plat­forms and issue cer­tifi­cates of com­pe­tence in accor­dance with DGUV Prin­ci­ple 308–008 — for tele­scop­ic and truck-mount­ed plat­forms and ver­ti­cal lifts, among oth­er things. The new­ly qual­i­fied train­ers can also car­ry out annu­al fol­low-up train­ing, and the com­pa­ny also pro­vid­ed them with a start-up pack­age con­tain­ing pre­sen­ta­tions and doc­u­men­ta­tion aids for their own training. 

Designing driving courses

The train­ing also includ­ed infor­ma­tion on legal require­ments for aer­i­al work plat­forms, on lia­bil­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty, instruc­tion in tech­ni­cal basics and the var­i­ous types of con­struc­tion and dri­ve, traf­fic reg­u­la­tions and traf­fic routes, and the design of dri­ving cours­es. For Matthias Müller, whose acad­e­my also con­ducts the train­er train­ing in accor­dance with the IPAF Hand­book and in coor­di­na­tion with IPAF Ger­many, it is clear: “The need to train qual­i­fied train­ers for MEWP oper­a­tors aris­es both from the high risk poten­tial dur­ing use and from a large num­ber of rel­e­vant regulations.”

Guidance on moderation

For Miri­am Win­ter of “Hes­sen Mobil,” this was a wealth of infor­ma­tion. By tak­ing on new tasks, the employ­ee of Hes­se’s road and traf­fic man­age­ment depart­ment is enter­ing com­plete­ly new ter­ri­to­ry for her with the cer­tifi­cate — and imme­di­ate­ly felt com­fort­able at the train­ing as the only par­tic­i­pant: “The exchange with col­leagues was very good for me. I was able to take away some con­crete tips.” In addi­tion to the prac­ti­cal prac­tice runs, it was also impor­tant for her to learn how to mod­er­ate instruc­tion: “At AST, I learned how to lead a group, teach it, and get it excit­ed about a top­ic.” Sig­gi Kern, on the oth­er hand, is already an “old hand” in the broad field of aer­i­al work plat­forms. But for him, too, there is always some­thing to learn: “For me, it was impor­tant to get into the depths of the leg­is­la­tion in addi­tion to the prac­ti­cal instruc­tion. This allowed me to learn more about the high respon­si­bil­i­ty of employ­ers and their con­cern for the phys­i­cal integri­ty of employees.”

But one thing is clear: MEWP oper­a­tors must also always be mind­ful and pru­dent, and learn that even at heights, you should always stay grounded. 

Occupational safety rethought

The com­pa­ny is one of the lead­ing engi­neer­ing firms for occu­pa­tion­al health and safe­ty in Ger­many and oper­ates Cam­pus M “Home of Safe­ty.”, one of the most inno­v­a­tive train­ing cen­ters for occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty in Ger­many. The com­pa­ny offers an exten­sive sem­i­nar and train­ing pro­gram, includ­ing vir­tu­al real­i­ty sim­u­la­tors. The focus is on prac­ti­cal train­ing and fur­ther edu­ca­tion and train­er cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in the field of safe­ty man­age­ment and tech­nol­o­gy — also avail­able as an e‑learning offer­ing on request.

Fire pro­tec­tion man­age­ment and com­pa­ny cer­ti­fi­ca­tions round off the range of ser­vices. The train­ing pro­gram, as well as the com­pa­ny itself, are ISO 9001 cer­ti­fied. Found­ed in 2003 by Ange­li­ka and Matthias Müller, the com­pa­ny now employs around 15 peo­ple who rethink the area of occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty on a dai­ly basis and thus help to make the work­ing lives of many peo­ple safer every day.