Denis Hogan: Lifting Equipment Engineers Association
“Getting three or four ‘options’ back from a straight question asking for advice isn’t good enough,” said Denis Hogan of LEEA, “an industry association should be able to give solid guidance on what to do”.
This unequivocal stance is typical of Mr Hogan, who describes himself as “just a little obsessive” about clarity and his input has help shape LEEA’s direction. “When I took over as UK country manager of the Lifting Equipment Engineers Association I was adamant that any ‘sitting on the fence’ was going to stop. Yes, there are always grey areas, but you need to be able to commit to saying, ‘this is the best way’.”
A metallurgist by training, he got involved in helping wire rope distributor Bridon-Certex set out its first quality management system: “I had to write procedures covering everything from manufacture to inspection from scratch…so I spent a long time standing over people’s shoulders watching them, and asking ‘Why?’” It was also, he said, a bit intimidating: “To them I was just this young whippersnapper, but I soon realised I couldn’t afford to alienate anyone – and most of them were related.”
The effort stood him in good stead, work in Europe and Angola meant reaching across linguistic and cultural divides even broader than the one in Derbyshire. Further, when Bridon needed to regularise its quality standards he travelled all the way across the US, listening to each of the smaller ‘mom’n’pop’ shop’s concerns. “Being able to talk to people often comes down to a matter of respect for what they bring,” he added.
He acknowledged he’s “pernickety” , but this, he said, means he will read through the entirety of the relevant documents or legislation, and as he pointed out, “someone needs to do it”. Further, his input has stood the test of time: he was recently surprised to find out some companies are still finding it practical to use procedures he wrote decades ago.
While now firmly based in the UK, Mr Hogan is still looking at the big picture and helping put professional lifting standards into places as diverse as Africa and Canada, an absorbing task “as they are often ready and willing” to take on proven industry legislation.
Despite all this, he still gets called in to solve the occasional metallurgical ‘mystery’.
When a penetrative dye was applied to steel billet that had failed dramatically he spotted a familiar pattern: “By chance I’d run into the same problem years ago, and remembered it because it had taken weeks to pin the issue to a very abrasive grinding wheel, overheating the surface of the steel. This time I took one look and asked the manufacturer if they’d recently changed the disc on their grinder.” Startled looks all round and a hurried call to check confirmed his suspicion.
So even while pursuing crusades such as getting full documentation supplied with lifting equipment, it is, he admitted, still gratifying “to be able to play Sherlock Holmes”.
By Stevie Knight
