How Cruitfly staffed 30 scaffold carpenters, with scaffold helpers, for a partial power plant shutdown in Wyoming, where the scaffold had to be built inside enclosures with challenging angles and very little room to work.
The project: a partial shutdown at an industrial power plant in Wyoming, with maintenance and repair work that needed scaffold access first.
Crew: 30 scaffold carpenters, plus scaffold helpers.
Service: temporary staffing. Every worker was a W2 Cruitfly employee on Cruitfly's payroll and workers' compensation.
A power plant shutdown runs on a fixed outage window. Every trade that follows, from the maintenance crews to the inspectors, needs scaffold in place before it can start, so scaffold is the first thing on the critical path and the first thing that can make the outage run long.
This one was harder than a standard build. The scaffold had to go up inside enclosures with challenging angles and tight spaces, not on open elevations. That kind of work needs carpenters who have built in an industrial plant before and can adapt a structure to the space in front of them, not a general labor crew learning scaffold on the job.
We staffed the project with 30 experienced scaffold carpenters, supported by scaffold helpers, for the shutdown.
Cruitfly is a member of the Scaffold and Access Industry Association (SAIA), which keeps us current with industry standards and compliance practice.
Because every worker was a W2 Cruitfly employee, the client did not have to take 30 people onto its own payroll for the length of an outage. Cruitfly carried the payroll, the employment administration and the workers' compensation coverage, and the client directed the work on site.
The crew built scaffold that was safe and efficient for the maintenance and repair crews that followed, inside enclosures that a less experienced crew would have struggled to work in. The client's outage work could proceed on the access the crew put up.
Scaffold is the trade that decides whether a shutdown starts on time. Finding 30 carpenters who can build in tight industrial enclosures, at the same time, for a fixed window, is the part of a shutdown most contractors cannot do from their own bench. It is also why Cruitfly treats scaffold as a specialty trade rather than as general labor.
Under OSHA 1926.451(f)(7), scaffolds may only be erected, moved, dismantled or altered under the supervision and direction of a competent person qualified in that work, and under 1926.451(f)(3) a competent person must inspect the scaffold before each work shift. Agree before the crew travels who fills that role on your site, and make sure that person has the authority to stop and correct the work.
OSHA 1926.454(b) requires every employee who erects, disassembles, moves, operates, repairs, maintains or inspects a scaffold to be trained by a competent person to recognize the hazards of that work. We share training records for the workers on your project on request.
Typical fill time is 48 to 72 hours. It varies with the site requirements, the size of the crew and when the order reaches us, so for a shutdown tell us the outage dates, the crew size and the site requirements as early as you can, and we will tell you honestly whether we can hit your window.
Related: Scaffold staffing · Temporary staffing · Compliance on your jobsite · All case studies
Need a certified crew on site? Tell us the project, the start date and the certifications you need. Typical fill is 48 to 72 hours, and every worker is a W2 Cruitfly employee covered by our workers' compensation. Prefer to talk? Call 317-426-7703.