Lift & Crane Engineer Surveyor

I am a Lift & Crane Surveyor and have been with Allianz Engineering for 4 years. After leaving school at 16 I knew I wanted to be an engineer and gained a 4 year apprenticeship in Mechanical Engineering at a paper mill in Kent. This involved one year off the job training followed by three years in the paper mill learning my trade as a mechanical craftsman. During this time one day a week was spent at college completing an ONC & HNC in plant engineering. After finishing my apprenticeship I became a Roll maintenance technician within the Roll Maintenance & Grinding workshop. This involved overseeing the day to day running of the workshop, the 6 fitters within and ensuring spares were readily available for two paper machines on site. It also involved implementing maintenance and quality assurance procedures for the work we completed.

Allianz Engineering was a large known company in the U.K with a good employment package and offered good development opportunities. The Surveyors role particularly interested me as it meant seeing a bit more of the world from an engineering point of view outside of a paper mill. Learning about all types of plant and applying my existing engineering skills to this new plant and the challenges it would bring.

The biggest advantage to being a Surveyor has to be working from home and managing your own work. The flexibility this brings to a working day is the biggest plus. Another advantage is getting out and about meeting all kinds of people from your clients to other engineers, the fact that in a typical surveying day you may start in a car garage then go to an office block and finally end the day in a shopping centre gives a great variety of environments and keeps the job interesting. Another big advantage to surveying is the satisfaction and sense of achievement you get leaving your client with equipment that is safe to use or on the other hand after highlighting a defect that could potentially have cause person harm.

Support for Surveyors is important as we are all “lone workers”. The company recognises this and therefore encourages good communication between all colleagues and management. One local method of support Surveyors receive is in the form of cell working, small groups of Surveyors meet regularly to discuss/assist with overdue work, training issues and experience sharing. The intranet is also another good form of support to remote workers as it provides a good source of information relating to work and social issues. Support also comes in the form of your ATOM / RTOM’s, Standards and Training department who are always at hand to advise or help with additional training needs.

Engineer Surveyors also have a great opportunity of support and development open to them in the form of the Engineer Development Programme. The programme is designed to allow Surveyors to step outside their normal role and go behind the scenes to learn more about how the business really works & what affects it. It is a great opportunity for both the individual and the business to learn and develop from each other. As a recent delegate on the EDP programme I can highly recommend it for both personal and professional development.

From a work point of view the most interesting location I have on my patch is Tower Bridge in London. Tower Bridge has stood over the River Thames in London since 1894 and is one of the finest, most recognisable bridges in the World. In its time it was the largest bascule (French for see-saw) bridge ever built.

As the Lift & Crane Surveyor I get to see areas of the bridge that most people are not permitted to go including the bascule chambers below the water level, the upper roof areas of both towers and I often get strange looks from people on the boats going under the bridge as I am inspecting the runway tracks on the outside of the high level walkways between the tower.