Lift engineering deliverables: what the client is actually buying

Not the number - the record that lets somebody who was not there accept it. Eight things every calculation carries, and one padeye that governs at 64 percent on one route and fails at 144 on another.

Updated 18 September 2026 · Companion tool: Lifting Lug Calculator

01

What the client is actually buying

Not arithmetic. Somebody's willingness to be accountable for a set of choices, written down in a form that survives them leaving the project.

Ask what the deliverable is on a lift engineering scope and the answer is usually a list of documents. That is the packaging. The substance is narrower and it is worth naming, because it changes what you spend time on.

A client is buying a defensible position. When something goes wrong, or an insurer asks, or a third party reviews, somebody opens a document and finds out what was assumed, what was checked, what was not, and who decided. If that document answers those questions, the engineering was delivered. If it produces numbers with no visible basis, then the engineering may well have happened and it was not delivered.

This has a practical consequence that engineers under time pressure get backwards. A calculation that is 95 percent right with its assumptions written down is a deliverable. A calculation that is exactly right with its assumptions in the author's head is not, and the second one takes longer.

02

The eight things a calculation record carries

This list does not change with the size of the job. A one-page padeye check and a 300 t upending study carry the same eight, at different lengths.

A calculation record

  1. 01Scope: what this document covers and what it does notOne paragraph. The most valuable paragraph in the document and the one most often missing.
  2. 02Load basis: where the load came from and what factors are on itWeighed, calculated, from a drawing, from a vendor. Plus the dynamic factor, the contingency and the skew allowance, each with its origin.
  3. 03Geometry basis: which drawing, which revision, what was measuredA dimension with no drawing reference cannot be re-checked when the drawing changes.
  4. 04Materials: grade, thickness, and the allowable that followsIncluding whether the allowable is from a standard, a mill certificate or a project specification.
  5. 05Route and edition: which design standard, which yearBecause it decides the resistance formula and the factors, and the same geometry gets different verdicts on different routes.
  6. 06Results, with the governing check namedEvery check, its utilisation, and which one governs. A single overall number hides the check that matters.
  7. 07What was not checkedExplicitly. Fatigue, buckling, the connection into the parent structure, the vessel's own shell. A reader cannot infer omissions.
  8. 08Who, when, and to what revisionAuthor, checker, date, revision. Unsigned calculations get re-done rather than reviewed.

Two of these deserve their own sections, because they are where deliverables actually fail review.

03

The record behind one padeye

A 210 kN lift point at 15 degrees off axis. This is the results half of a record, and the section that follows is why the results half alone is not enough.

Lifting Lug Calculator · computed at page render

Lift point LP-04, revision C

210 kN characteristic at 15 degrees off the plate axis, with a declared dynamic factor of 1.1 and an all-around fillet weld at the base.

Design load after the declared factor231.0kN
Net-section tension22.1%
Double-plane shear-out63.9%
Pin bearing on the lug50.6%
Pin double shear25.7%
Fillet weld throat resultant56.1%
Governing check: Double-plane shear-out (mechanics)63.9% utilisationPass

Six results and a governing check. Useful, and on its own it is still not a deliverable, because nothing above says which route these allowables came from or what was left out.

Open this example in the calculator

And here is the record saying what it did not do. The engine declines the base-section combined-stress check on this input set and gives its reason:

Base section combined stress (mechanics)

Not evaluated - no out-of-plane / base-section load case is declared. Declare the out-of-plane group (angle from the plate plane and the base-to-pin lever arm) to activate this check.

That sentence is worth more to a reviewer than another passing utilisation would be. It says a check exists, it says why it did not run, and it says exactly what input would activate it. Compare that with a report that does not mention the check at all: identical appearance, entirely different information.

Everything above is still results. Here is the same run as a deliverable. Scroll it: the eight things from the previous section are all in there, in the order a reviewer reads them, and the document is the thing that gets a revision letter and a date rather than the number.

LP-04-CALC rev C.pdf

Lifting Lug Calculator · complete, unwatermarked

Open these inputs
The complete record for the padeye above, on the same inputs, unwatermarked. Scope, load basis, geometry basis, materials, route, every check with the governing one named, what was not evaluated and why, and who ran it when.

04

The route is part of the deliverable

Same plate, same pin, same weld, same load. Two design routes, and one of them says this padeye is fine while the other says the weld is 44 percent over.

The table below is the same four physical checks read twice: once on the declared route with its allowables, and once on the ASME BTH-1 cross-check the engine runs alongside it.

Physical checkDeclared routeBTH-1 cross-check
Net-section tension22.1%58.8%
Double-plane shear-out63.9%69.9%
Pin bearing on the lug50.6%109.4%
Fillet weld at the base56.1%144.3%

Nothing physical changed between those two columns. What changed is the design factor the route imposes and the basis of the allowable it compares against, and those are decisions that live in a standard rather than in the geometry.

A single overall figure would have reported this padeye at its governing utilisation and hidden the spread. The spread is what tells you which dimension to change.

Where the route is actually declared. It is one control, four options, and every check downstream reads from it:

Lifting Lug Calculator

Full sizeOpen these inputs
The methodology selector in the lifting lug calculator, on this article's inputs. The selected route decides the primary utilisations; the other three are still computed and printed alongside as a cross-check, which is where the 144 percent in the table above comes from.
The methodology selector in the lifting lug calculator, on this article's inputs. The selected route decides the primary utilisations; the other three are still computed and printed alongside as a cross-check, which is where the 144 percent in the table above comes from.

The reviewable version of this is not "we used BTH-1". It is: this project's specification requires that route, in that edition, at that design category, and here is the clause reference for the design factor. Then a reader can tell that the route was chosen before the answer rather than after it, which is the distinction that matters and the one an unlabelled results table cannot make.

05

The document set for a heavy lift

Six documents, and the relationships between them are what a reviewer actually reads.

Lift plan. The operation: sequence, equipment, positions, crew, exclusion zones, hold points, weather limits, contingency. The document that gets carried on site. It references the others rather than repeating them.

Rigging arrangement drawing. What is connected to what, with sling lengths, angles, hook heights and every accessory identified by its rating. The drawing that makes the calculation's assumptions visible to somebody holding a shackle.

Lift point calculations. Each lift point, checked, with the eight things above. Usually the largest document by page count and the one most often lifted from a previous project.

Below-the-hook device design. Where a spreader, frame or lifting beam is involved. Its own record, and it carries a marked rated capacity that appears in the rigging arrangement.

Ground bearing or foundation assessment. The crane's outrigger or track pressures against a stated allowable bearing capacity, and the mat design that gets them there. The document that most often has an owner boundary problem, because the allowable capacity belongs to the geotechnical side and the demand belongs to the lifting side.

Weight and centre of gravity report. Where the load's properties came from, with a tolerance. Everything else in the set depends on it, and it is the document most often assumed rather than produced.

The relationships a reviewer checks between them

  1. 01The weight in the lift plan equals the weight in the calculationsIncluding whether both are gross, and both carry the same contingency.
  2. 02The sling angle on the drawing equals the angle in the padeye checkThis is the single most common mismatch in a document set.
  3. 03The rated capacity on the device equals the one in the arrangementAnd the marking on the physical item matches both.
  4. 04The crane load case in the ground assessment is the governing oneNot the one somebody had a chart page for.
  5. 05Every document names the same revision of the same drawingTwo documents against two drawing revisions is a set that agrees with nothing.

06

Revisions, dates, and the thing that goes stale

The load. It is always the load.

A calculation is valid against the inputs it was performed with, and one of those inputs changes more often than any other: the weight of the thing being lifted. Insulation gets added, a nozzle grows, a pump is substituted, spare parts travel inside the vessel. Each of those is somebody else's ordinary change and none of them triggers a call to the lifting engineer.

Three habits deal with this, and they cost almost nothing.

State the weight the calculation was performed at, in the lift plan, in bold. Not in an appendix. The person on site is the one who can notice that the tag plate says something different.

State the margin to the next threshold. "Governing check at 64 percent, and this arrangement remains acceptable to 265 kN" tells a project manager what a change costs before they make it. A bare utilisation does not.

Re-issue rather than annotate. A revised weight is a new revision of the calculation, with the superseded revision retained. Marked-up copies with hand-written weights circulate for years and lose their marks.

07

Six ways a deliverable fails review

None of these is an arithmetic error. Every one of them is a document problem, which is why checking the maths again does not find them.

1. No scope statement. The reader cannot tell whether the parent structure was in or out, so they have to ask, and the answer arrives three weeks later.

2. The route is not named. See the table above. The number is uninterpretable without it.

3. Omissions are invisible. Fatigue was not assessed. Nothing in the document says so, so a reader who does not already know the check list assumes it was.

4. Inputs with no provenance. A 42 mm pin diameter with no drawing reference cannot be re-checked when the pin is substituted.

5. No revision control. Two versions in circulation, both undated, and the site has the older one.

6. An overall percentage instead of a check list. The single figure is always the governing one, and the value of a record is that a reader can see the ones just behind it.

Common questions

What should a lifting calculation report contain?
Eight things, and the list does not change with the size of the job. Scope, meaning what the document covers and what it does not. The load basis with every factor and where it came from. The geometry basis, naming the drawing and its revision. Materials and the allowables that follow. The design route and its edition. Results with the governing check named. What was not checked. And who, when, and to what revision.
Why does the design route have to be named in the report?
Because it decides the verdict. The worked padeye in this article governs at 64 percent on its declared route and its weld comes out at 144 percent on the below-the-hook cross-check, on identical geometry carrying an identical load. Nothing physical differs between those two columns; what differs is the design factor the route imposes and the basis of the allowable. A utilisation with no route attached cannot be interpreted at all.
Why does a report need to say what it did not check?
Because a missing check and a passing check are indistinguishable to a reader. If fatigue was not assessed, or the parent structure was out of scope, or the shell behind the attachment belongs to somebody else, a reader who does not already know the full check list will assume it was covered. Stating the omission takes one line and is often the most useful line in the document.
What documents make up a heavy lift engineering package?
Usually six: the lift plan, the rigging arrangement drawing, the lift point calculations, the below-the-hook device design where one is used, the ground bearing or foundation assessment, and the weight and centre of gravity report. What a reviewer actually reads is the relationships between them - whether the weight in the plan matches the weight in the calculations, whether the sling angle on the drawing matches the angle in the padeye check, and whether every document names the same drawing revision.
What makes a calculation go out of date?
The weight, almost always. Insulation gets added, a nozzle grows, a pump is substituted, spare parts travel inside the vessel, and none of those changes triggers a call to the lifting engineer. Three habits handle it: state the weight the calculation was performed at prominently in the lift plan, state the margin to the next threshold so a project manager can see what a change costs, and re-issue a revision rather than annotating a printed copy.

Sources

Every document below is linked at its publisher or regulator. Xarpis reproduces no standard text; where a clause is named, the identifier is given so you can find it in your own copy.

  • ASME BTH-1Design of Below-the-Hook Lifting Devices

    ASME · paid document

    Structural, mechanical and electrical design criteria for below-the-hook lifting devices, used alongside ASME B30.20 which carries the safety requirements. The current edition is BTH-1-2023; Xarpis implements the 2020 edition and says so on every result.

  • HSE lifting equipment guidanceLifting equipment at work: planning and organising lifting operations

    UK Health and Safety Executive · free to read

    The regulator's own plain-language account of what planning a lifting operation means in UK law: who is competent to plan it, what a plan has to address, and how it scales from a routine repetitive lift to a one-off complex one. Free, short, and the closest thing to an official answer to 'what has to be in a lift plan'.

  • DNV-ST-N001Marine operations and marine warranty

    DNV · paid document

    The marine warranty standard behind most offshore lift factor sets: dynamic amplification, skew load and consequence factors, and the load cases a marine operation is planned against. Widely applied onshore by contract even though its scope is marine.

  • LEEALifting Equipment Engineers Association

    LEEA · free portal

    The international trade association for the lifting equipment industry, and the body behind the LEEA Academy qualifications that most UK and Gulf lifting inspectors hold. Its technical library and member directory are where a reader goes to check that whoever examined their equipment is qualified to have done so.

Run the check properly

Reading about a calculation is not the same as being able to hand one over. These tools produce the traceable record.

Something here wrong, or thinner than it should be? Tell us which paragraph and it gets rewritten. Articles carry the date they were last revised for exactly this reason.

Lift engineering deliverables the client buys · Xarpis