Mobile Crane Usage (2021 - 2024): Practical Exams and Assessments

Stephen Gunter, Ph.D.

2024-05-08

Business Problem

NCCER’s Mobile Crane Operator Certification Program is the largest program in the organization in terms of usage and revenue generation. NCCCO (“CCO”) is NCCER’s main competitor in the mobile crane certification space. Recently, CCO purchased a training organization and is allegedly requiring or strongly encouraging all companies who want a certification from CCO to go through their training program. This is viewed by some companies as in conflict with ANSI’s accreditation requirements which state that a certification body (i.e., CCO or NCCER) must establish protocols to create a boundary between training and certification, if the certification body conducts both.

As a result of CCO’s recent acquisition, a coalition of companies in the mobile crane space has formed to discuss the issue and potentially take action. One of the coalition’s request of NCCER, should they leave CCO and join NCCER, is that NCCER simplify the certification process with respect to the number of mobile crane practical exams and, therefore, the pathway to certification. A simplified scheme was developed and reduces the number of assessments from four to two (Lattice Boom and Telescopic Boom). The number of practicals stays the same in the “simplified” scheme. Crawler Mount, Rubber Tire Truck Mount, Rough Terrain/All Terrain, and Industrial/All Purpose change to Lattice Boom (friction and hydraulic) and Telescopic Boom (fixed controls and rotating controls). The “simplification” of the proposed scheme is that, so far, there are only four practical exams, not 13 as is the case now with the many different types of cranes that someone can conduct a practical exam.

The purpose of this analysis is to present the usage for the Mobile Crane Operator Certification Program and to determine the impact of the “simplified” certification scheme. For example, we know that some individuals may certify on multiple crane types. Thus, if NCCER simplified the mobile crane scheme, then what is the potential impact on usage and sales if there is a limited capacity to certify on multiple crane types?

Data and Methods

The data for this analysis was all data from 2021 to 2024 for mobile crane assessments and practical exams. All data were exported from Totara 13 in the raw JSON format. The data contained all assessments and practical exams (not PVs). Thus, the data were filtered to only focus on anything related to our Mobile Crane, Rigger, and Signal Person certifications. I focused on the Mobile Crane, Rigger, and Signal Person data because upon initial inspection of the full data set I observed some test takers a range of assessment-practical exam combinations, including Rigger assessment-Signal Person practical exam, for example. Below is a view of the processed and filtered data set for this analysis.

ExamineeCardNumber AsmntPracticalName Type AsmntName PracticalName FirstName LastName PracticalExamCode PracticalCompletionDate Score Status
26914967 Rigger Practical Exam Practical exam NA Rigger Practical Exam Kaleb Haynes PIPRIG01 2024-04-26T09:27:06Z 100 Pass
27036335 Rigger Practical Exam Practical exam NA Rigger Practical Exam Brandon Macfadyen PIPRIG01 2024-04-26T09:29:13Z 100 Pass
24894026 Rigger Practical Exam Practical exam NA Rigger Practical Exam Avery Kiely PIPRIG01 2024-04-26T09:28:41Z 100 Pass
28241034 Rigger Practical Exam Practical exam NA Rigger Practical Exam Jacob wright PIPRIG01 2024-04-26T09:31:27Z 100 Pass
28225046 Rigger Practical Exam Practical exam NA Rigger Practical Exam Bruce HENDRICKS PIPRIG01 2024-04-26T09:29:38Z 100 Pass

The data contain two groups of test takers, those who appear only once in the data set and those who appear more than once. When someone appears only once this means that we see a single row of a specific Card Number, where a row indicates a test event/completion. When someone (i.e., Card Number) appears more than once this means that this person has taken a specific assessment or practical exam more than once (i.e, they failed the first time) or they have taken multiple assessments and practical exams such as the Advanced Rigger assessment and a Mobile Crane assessment. Without mitigating solutions, the potential impact of the simplified mobile crane scheme is for the test takers who want to be certified on multiple crane types or mobile crane and rigger or signal person (i.e., “multiply certified”).

Results for Single Occurrences of Card Numbers

The next set of three tables presents the usage for assessments and practical exams for those who appear only once in the data set. The first two tables present the results for assessments or practical exams. The third table presents the results for assessment and practical exam usage combined into one view.

* an empty cell indicates an “NA” which means that someone took either an assessment or practical exam, but not the other. You will see this in the first table as example. There are 2,060 NAs because 2,060 people took a practical exam, but not an assessment.

Table 1: Frequency of Each Assessment Name

Table 2: Frequency of Each Practical Exam Name

Table 3: Frequency of Assessment and Practical Exam Combinations

Results for Multiple Occurrences of Card Numbers

The next set of tables presents the same results as above, but for those who appear in the data set more than once. Recall that those who show up more than once could be retesters or “multiply certified” individuals.

Table 4: Frequency of Each Assessment Name

Table 5: Frequency of Each Practical Exam Name

Table 6: Frequency of Unique Assessment and Practical Exam Combinations