News Archive

IRATA are committed to evaluating the industrial rope access profession. This includes continually reviewing and enhancing our syllabus and assessments and the support we offer members and technicians. A course specifically designed to provide technicians and rope access managers with effective rope access specific supervisory and management skills is planned to be launched in 2018. Here we provide some insight into our Rope Access Manager/Rope Access Safety Supervisor course (aka RAMRASS).

RAMRASS

When work is to be carried out at height, good management and supervision are essential to ensure a safe system of work. Rope access worksites, therefore, should be properly managed and supervised to ensure the safety and health of those involved in the rope access project.

IRATA’s Health, Safety & Technical Advisor, David Thomas, was delighted to be invited to give a presentation at the DROPS Forum on 27th April held in Aberdeen. Following David’s presentation, Drops representative, Greg Reid, stated:

“Our Steering Committee and Management Team agree that IRATA membership and support for DROPS would bring added benefit and provide opportunities for us to work together in the continuous review and alignment of our best practice recommendations. As our organisations are both established globally, we anticipate many more opportunities for IRATA representatives to share lessons learned in the pursuit of improvements in dropped object prevention performance. It would be our pleasure to share the elements of our Best Practice Recommendations with regard to Training and Awareness and trust you may find relevant information and resources that may be suitable for your candidates”

The IRATA Executive Committee will meet in June 2017, and will discuss opportunities for collaboration with the Drops organisation.

​ISO/IEC 17024 provides a global benchmark for personnel certification programmes to ensure that they operate in a consistent, comparable and reliable manner worldwide, thereby allowing individuals to have skills that translate across national lines.

Following on from the success of the Edge Management poster (as found here: provide hyperlink to poster) the team at IRATA have been busy creating a safety awareness video aimed at furthering the safety critical knowledge of edge management in rope access.

The objective of this short film is to educate rope access workers to the dangers to their ropes found on-site and the care needed from all workers to safely manage such hazards. The hierarchy of: remove, avoid, protect (RAP) as found in Annex P of the ICOP (hyperlink ICOP download page) is outlined, together with the importance of all technicians working together as a team.

This film is in its final stages of development having been shown at recent RAC meetings, and shall be released shortly with the aim of it being used as part of a safety meeting or toolbox talk. The film contains a set of questions for discussion in the meeting, and is intended to be an interactive learning experience for all attendees.

Our 2017 ITEC will take place between 23 and 25 October 2017, in Cape Town, South Africa. We are currently finalising the programme of events and will provide full details as soon all details are confirmed.