A one-page site logistics plan
On his first morning, a new drywall foreman asks where he can stage 300 sheets, where his crew should park and which gate the boom truck uses. The superintendent answers from memory, pointing across the site. By noon the drywall is stacked where the concrete pump sets up on Thursday.
Until someone draws it, a site's layout lives in the superintendent's head, and every trade that arrives makes its own guess. A one-page plan answers the recurring questions once: where to enter, where material goes, where the crane swings, where the washrooms are and how the fire department gets in. It must also change with the job: the laydown that works during excavation is where the structure goes next.
What goes on the page
- Start from a scaled base with property lines, neighbouring buildings, sidewalks, trees, poles and hydrants. For a street-use permit, follow the city's drawing rules; Toronto, for example, asks for a scaled metric drawing with dimensions, property lines, a north arrow and a legend.
- Show access and routes: gates, truck routes, turning space, a waiting spot for trucks, and pedestrian routes kept apart from vehicles, so deliveries can be booked against it.
- Number the laydown areas with what each is for, and show fuel and gas cylinder storage where your fire safety plan puts it.
- Mark hoisting from the lift plan: crane position, swing and landing zones, and the areas closed during lifts. In British Columbia, for example, no worker may stand or pass under a suspended load, and where a crane's swing creates a hazard, nobody may enter or stay within its range.
- Place the facilities: office, washrooms, first aid, muster point and parking.
- Keep fire access clear. In Calgary, for example, the Alberta edition of the National Fire Code requires a fire safety plan for buildings under construction, and the city's minimum measures include access for emergency crews, unobstructed hydrants and accessible standpipe connections.
- Date and number every version, post it at the gate, use it at orientation, and redraw it at each phase change.
Common mistakes
- Drawing the plan for the permit and never updating it.
- Putting a laydown area on the fire access route or in front of a hydrant.
- Leaving the swing and landing zones off because the operator knows them.
- Crowding the page until nobody can read it at the gate.
Checklist
The plan shows
- Gates, truck route, turning space and waiting spot
- Pedestrian routes separated from vehicles
- Numbered laydown areas and what each is for
- Crane or hoist position, swing and landing zones
- Office, washrooms, first aid and muster point
- Fire access, hydrants and standpipe connections
- Version number, date and who issued it
Check your understanding
The crane starts landing loads on the east side. What changes on the plan, and who needs to know?
