You Maintain Your Customer’s Cars . Do You Maintain Your Shop Equipment?

Many garage owners may be using unsafe lifts and other heavy equipment and not even know it. While that shiny lift that you spent your budget surplus on a few years back looks like it’s in good shape and works like a charm, in the long run, there could be some problems with it that you do not know about. This is why having your lifts, along with all other heavy equipment in a shop inspected on a consistent annual basis is necessary to not only ensure your worker’s safety, but also to save yourself from any future legal trouble in the event of a preventable accident.

“The challenge is that there are so many rules that governments impose on a business,” says Satinder Chera, director of provincial affairs with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. “What you tend to find are overly aggressive inspectors that go in and without even listening to the business owner, look at any fault that they see and issue the owner a ticket. One of the things we stress to the government is that it’s important to at least provide proper communication and education on health and safety issues, so that businesses understand it. Instead of fining them, teach them. Show them how to make their workplace safer.”

Let’s take a closer look at lift inspection and safety, since lifts are critical to any independent shop, and if something goes wrong and an injury is caused to a worker, the consequences can be severe.

According to R. W. O’Gorman, president of the Automotive Lift Institute, the Ontario Ministry of Labour and Work Safe B. C. both reference the American National Standard ANSI/ ALI ALOIM (Operation, Inspection and Maintenance) when it comes to lift safety and inspection.

“Section 5.5 of that standard identifies inspection frequency,” O’Gorman says. “It basically says you shall follow the recommendations of the lift manufacturer regarding frequency.”

He goes on to quote the ANSI/ALI ALOIM saying, “Whether it is weekly, monthly, semi-annually, or annual, or on some other basis, the owner or employer shall ensure an inspection by a qualified lift inspector as a minimum annual requirement. You can have your own employees fulfill this requirement if you feel they’re qualified to fill that duty, but it would be wise to fully document their qualifications.”

As of yet, there is no official certification in the USA or Canada that says who can be a qualified lift inspector. The Automotive Lift Institute says a set of guidelines for this is in the works, but for the time being there are only independent inspectors. Many manufacturers don’t use corporate in-house inspectors, simply because it costs too much money to have people coming out to every shop to do maintenance. This has opened up a market for the independent inspector who can be contracted out by a lift manufacturer. For example, Rotary Lift has independent inspectors who the company trains on how to inspect and maintain their lift products. Many of these inspectors are also installers of lift technologies, and have established business relationship with the shops that they provide inspection services for.

“The issue is a lot of times shops will not do routine maintenance on lift cables and cylinders,” says John Rylee, director of marketing with Rotary Lift. “Rotary has 300 factory-trained install-continues ers in the North American market who can do service. They also work on lifts other than Rotary’s. They’re also equipped to be able to put in the right part, which can be an issue if it is not an original equipment part.”

Hydra-Lift Industries Ltd. also uses the independent service and inspector model, similar to Rotary Lift.

“Most manufacturers do not have a team of service people,” says Bill Ward, president of Hydra-Lift. “We have a network of people, but they aren’t ours. We have independent people across Canada that do that kind of work, but they also work with other companies as well.”

Hydra-Lift used to have an in-house team of people who went out to a garage to do maintenance and inspections. But the company found that it was too hard to reach every shop that needed regular inspections of its lifts. Ward says because you could be doing a job in Scarborough, Ont. and then a few hours later have a scheduled appointment in north of the city, it became logistically impossible to provide high quality of maintenance to all shops.

Another way to meet the inspection requirements of lifts is to do it yourself. However, one has to remember that while the DIY approach saves money and time it also puts the responsibility for the regular inspection and making sure the lift meets all code and safety requirements squarely on the shop owner’s shoulders. Still, with this added responsibility also comes a desire to make sure the job is done correctly each and every time.

Bruce Eccles, owner of Bruce Eccles Auto Service in Dundas, Ont., says despite the fact that he doesn’t even know for sure what the laws surrounding lift maintenance specifically say, he annually has his lifts professionally inspected.

“It’s the same old thing,” he continues. “There are an awful lot of laws in place that are provincial and federal government, but no one ever enforces them. The truth be known, I think most guys and shop owners are probably ignorant of the laws, and because nobody comes in and inspects, I don’t know the actual law. The guy who comes in a does the maintenance and inspections tells me it’s annually.”

Despite the lack of clarity on lift safety laws, Eccles says he personally goes the extra mile to ensure that his employee’s are safe.

“(The lifts) are being operated and used everyday by my staff and they’re

the most important people in the whole business because without them, I’m nothing,” says Eccles. “And the other thing is that it’s a liability issue. So many things in our business are common sense. It’s only common sense to keep a safe work environment and that means the floors are clean, and any kind of spills are looked after immediately.”

Eccles’ idea of a safe workplace is echoed in Kitchener, Ontario by Tim Togeretz at OK Tire and Auto Service.

“A safe workplace is beneficial to everybody, not only to the employee, but to the owner. Once the system is set up, it doesn’t cost money to run a safe show,” says Togeretz, adding that setting up his health and safety committee and bringing his shop up to par required a lot of work.

Togeretz was prompted to bring his shop up to par after having two workers’ compensation claims in one year, at which point a workers’ compensation audit was done. The shop was visited four times by the Ministry of Labour to bring OK Tire and Auto Service up to speed. Togeretz worked closely with the inspector who had been assigned to his shop and they set deadlines for things to be done.

According to Goldie Bassi, associto ate lawyer with Gowlings Professionals Employment and Labour Group, when the Ministry of Labour comes to your shop one of four things can happen. The first thing is nothing. But usually if the ministry comes to your shop, you’ve done something to bring them there. They can issue and order to the employer or supervisor which sets a deadline to have whatever infraction that was found fixed. They can issue a stop work order, which means that the shop either has

close until they are up to health and safety standards, or they are not allowed to use a certain piece of equipment such as a lift. A shop can also be charged and taken to court.

What the big picture says is that while it may seem like a make work project, if you are not in compliance with your lift safety certifications and maintenance checks, you are basically sitting in a checkmate position, waiting for something bad to happen. Bruce Eccles sums it up with a nice outlook on keeping a shop sharp as a tack.

“The more professional your operation is, and when I say professional that starts with the image you put out right from the road. If your place looks like
a wrecking yard from the outside, chances are the building is probably unsafe because it looks exactly like your parking lot,” says Eccles. “If everything is organized and there are no dead cars and it’s clean and well lit, it offers a more professional looking facility right off the bat. Take that professional look and come inside the building, and you see a nice clean well lit facility with a proper waiting area, that’s a whole package. It’d be ridiculous if the shop was an unsafe mess.”