Making lifting equipment quality visible
A series of LEEA roundtables examined how to make quality as visible and understandable as price, particularly for the procurement professionals buying lifting equipment.
People buying lifting equipment are rarely the people using it and procurement decisions are driven almost entirely by price, while quality and safety are prioritised by those who specify and use the equipment. However, this self-regulated model leaves real gaps in visibility and accountability.
It’s an issue that emerged consistently across all three LEEA roundtables, held earlier this year in locations across the UK. Bringing together LEEA members, procurement professionals, training providers and end users, they were held under the Chatham House Rule. The guiding question each roundtable discussed was: how can LEEA make quality as visible and understandable as price, particularly for the procurement professionals buying lifting equipment?
A number of contributing factors were raised repeatedly. These included quality being largely self-declared, with little independent verification. While procurement teams lack expertise in lifting standards they are under no obligation to seek it out. Harmonised standards cover design and testing but not manufacturing quality control, which can result in a product being fully compliant yet still inferior. Declarations of conformity can be self-certified and therefore, in practice, close to meaningless. Brand recognition is often the only proxy for quality in the absence of a clearer framework.
Key themes
The roundtables generated a number of key themes, with the first being around verification and approved lists. There was a strong, consistent appetite for a formal LEEA verification mechanism that goes beyond membership, a “LEEA Verified” mark applied per item, an approved supplier list distinguishing compliant members (without ranking them), independent verification (via UKAS, for example) and supplementary quality specifications (as used by organisations such as Sellafield) to close the gap between compliance and genuine quality.
Setting education as the highest priority is a theme that goes beyond LEEA members – who largely understand the issues already. The challenge is reaching procurement teams, end users and large contractors. Among the ideas offered during the roundtables were a short online module for procurement professionals that members can signpost customers towards, LEEA-led presentations to which members can invite their customers, targeted outreach to Appointed Persons and compliance teams and engagement through LiftEx and other events.
A decision-tree style tool was proposed independently at multiple sessions. This would be a digital tool – perhaps AI powered – that walks a buyer through key questions such as: what is being lifted, in what environment, to what weight and under what conditions? It then recommends suitable LEEA members. A procurement guidebook was suggested as a companion. This would cover legal duties, supply-chain responsibilities and testing obligations.
Membership and influence were discussed around concepts to extend LEEA’s reach: an end-user membership grade encouraging end users to specify LEEA members, a LEEA Ambassador grade for individuals (such as Appointed Persons) who champion good practice inside non-member organisations and a “CAP card” style scheme enabling inspection certificate numbers to be verified online. A proposal conceived in 2019 that only LEEA members be permitted to inspect lifting equipment (similar to Gas Safe) was referenced, though it has not progressed.
Reaching large companies and auditing were the final themes from the discussions. Getting major construction, utilities and industrial organisations to require LEEA membership or LEEA Verified products on tenders was seen as transformative, best argued through the “cheap now, expensive later” problem, and pursued in an educational rather than enforcement-led way. On auditing, participants at the Southampton roundtable preferred face-to-face over virtual audits, and raised unannounced audits as a more honest test of day-to-day standards.
Australia and New Zealand: product marking and documentation
A parallel consultation with members in Australia and New Zealand approached the issue from the supplier and product-marking side. Its guiding principle framed the whole discussion: “LEEA is not asking whether members already comply; LEEA is asking whether the information is clear enough to prevent the wrong product being selected, purchased or used.”
The recurring theme of ‘compliant but not understood’ matched the UK sessions exactly: products can be fully compliant and correctly marked, yet buyers still misread them. The gap is comprehension, not compliance, and there was strong support for simple, practical checklists – for product marking and for certificates – as the first usable tools LEEA could publish.
Among other points raised at the ANZ member consultation were Minimum product information: the product itself should carry WLL, grade, configuration limits, a traceability / batch / serial code and the referenced standards, so a competent person can identify it without guessing.
There are outdated or absent standards for niche products – such as stainless steel connectors and chains – and a persistent SWL-versus-WLL ambiguity. Products not explicitly covered by a standard are difficult to certify.
Education gaps result in common buyer and end-user misunderstandings on capacity, configuration and environment, notably sling-angle reduction factors (angle from vertical versus horizontal) and edge protection, both of which can lead to failure.
A real-world reminder was issued by members referencing a Western Australia case in which a company was fined following a fatality, linked to insufficient instructions for use and missing information about the product’s intended environment, a stark illustration of what inadequate documentation can cost.
The issue of imported and own-branded products was raised. There is concern that some small firms import and re-brand products without adequate quality assurance (factory audits, break testing, documentation), resulting in certification problems.
Finally, the discussion highlighted widespread buyer confusion between NATA certification and ISO 17025 accreditation, and an appetite for clearer, coordinated industry messaging – including making LEEA the authoritative online source so that AI-driven search surfaces correct guidance.
The bottom line is that both sides of the supply chain describe the same gap: UK buyers cannot see quality next to price, and ANZ suppliers see compliant products misread by the people buying them. LEEA needs greater reach, stronger influence and smarter tools, starting with the plain-language checklists both groups asked for, to make good procurement the path of least resistance, and to define, communicate and verify what “good” actually looks like.
The roundtable reports can be downloaded at globalliftingawarenessday.com/downloads.
