Lift Planning
By Seth Skydel
Meeting Challenges
Effective lift planning eliminates variables, cuts costs, and improves safety
Tawnia Weiss, president of A1A Software LLC has spent her entire career in the crane and transportation industries. At Compu-Crane and Rigging Pro software she gained experience in the technology side of equipment service. In 2006, Weiss founded A1A, bringing to the industry a first-hand understanding of how equipment operates and how owners manage their fleets and use their cranes.
In an exclusive conversation with Crane Hot Line, Weiss discussed how crane companies can more effectively provide efficient, cost effective, and safer lifts.
What lift planning challenges
Q: are crane companies facing, and what are the costs of not addressing them?
There are a lot of variables that go into every lift, and the challenge is making sure all the pieces come together before the crane ever gets to the jobsite. Those include crane selection, configuration, radius, rigging, ground conditions, surrounding structures, and equipment placement.
If something is missed, it can quickly turn into delays, rework, added mobilization costs, or lost time. But the biggest concern is safety. The more you can identify and work through during the planning stage, the less likely you are to discover a serious issue once the crew and equipment are already in place.
How does lift planning
Q: software help address those challenges?
It gives planners the opportunity to work through the lift ahead of time and see what the job is going to look like. The real value is being able to catch something before it becomes a field problem. If you can see that a crane needs to be repositioned, or that there may be a clearance issue Tawnia Weiss, during planning, that is President, A1A much easier to address Software LLC than finding out on the day of the lift.
What are some lift planning
Q: best practices, and what are the benefits of advanced solutions?
It really starts with having accurate information. You need to know your load, your crane, your rigging, your site conditions, and what is around you. From there, you want to verify your crane capacity, look closely at ground conditions, and make sure the plan is communicated clearly to everyone involved.
Advanced planning tools make that easier because you can compare different options and visualize the lift instead of relying only on drawings and numbers. That
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November 2026 • www. cranehotline. com