Rich South High School
Hunter Lash, Nichols Crane Rental
Nichols Crane is WBE/DBE certified and has been serving Chicagoland for almost 30 years. We have a
comprehensive, modern fleet of cranes from 35 tons to 550 tons. Our operators and project managers
are experienced, service-minded and can coordinate and execute even the most complex jobs.
3D lift planning is an essential part of our preplanning at Nichols Crane, and for each job we provide a 3D
lift plan that helps with efficiency, coordination and safety onsite. It also provides our customers and
general contractors assurance that the crane, crane configuration and rigging meet industry-wide and
site-specific safety requirements.
When setting units for the brand new fieldhouse at Rich South High School, a series of 3D images were
essential to planning and coordinating with our customer, Stevens Engineering, general contractor,
Pepper Construction, and other trades onsite.
The original timelines for this project were delayed due to Covid-related material shortages, and many
contractors had to work in concert to complete the building in a timely manner. As a result, the site was
busy, space was extremely limited and we were no longer able to set our crane up where we originally
planned. 3D lift planning allowed us to quickly lay out a new plan and to visually show these changes.
The new plan was to use our 550 ton Liebherr LTM 1450-8.1 to minimize the need for multiple set ups
and to limit interference with other trades. We also used a 70 ton Liebherr 1060-3.1 first as an assist
crane during the build and then to offload units.
To further complicate things on this busy site, the units showed up at different times, so we had to stage
them onsite away from the picking area. We teamed up with our customer’s trucking to offload units,
and then had to move them again once the crane was set up on site.
We had multiple onsite meetings and jobsite walks with our customer and Pepper Construction’s Safety
Department. Our common goal was to maintain a 75% safety factor along with allowing the various
other trades to continue working. One of the other trades was even leveraging a 40 ton Nichols Crane to
lift roofing materials in the next section over!
We used a combination of Google Earth images, drone footage, and site plans to accurately depict the
site. The lift plan showed the build and laydown of the crane, unit staging area and swing radius of the
550 ton crane setting the units. This allowed everyone to visualize what would happen onsite and to
align on how the various moving parts would work together.
This project was executed seamlessly and was a big success for everyone involved!