Haul truck maintenance platforms: the checklist

October 19, 2026  ·  Indumor

“The harness is the last resort, not the first.” Any safety manager with years at a mine site says it, and it sums up an idea that sometimes gets forgotten: before asking someone to hang from a harness to work at height, ask why they do not have solid footing and a railing to work from. In a mine’s truck shop, that question has a concrete answer: well-designed maintenance platforms.

Haul trucks at large mines carry from two hundred to more than three hundred tonnes. They stand over six meters tall to the top of the cab, roll on tires nearly four meters in diameter and have components inspected several meters off the ground: engine, radiators, cab, hoist cylinders, body, wheel motors. Every service means climbing, and every climb is a chance to fall. Falls from height are among the most serious accidents at any mining operation; in Argentina the sector has its own health and safety regulation, Decree 249/2007, plus each operator’s internal standards, which are usually stricter still.

The engineering answer is access platforms: fixed, mobile or swing-out structures surrounding the truck in the shop, giving the mechanic a floor, a railing and a stair where there used to be a portable ladder leaning on a fender. Done right, besides preventing accidents, they speed up maintenance: the truck gets back to the pit sooner, and an hour of truck downtime is expensive. This is the checklist we use to design and build them.

The checklist

• Heights for the real fleet: not all trucks are alike, and many mines run models of different makes and sizes. Platforms are designed for each model’s work points, with adjustable levels or interchangeable sections if the fleet is mixed or will change.
• Full guarding and closures toward the truck: top rail, mid rail and toe board all around. The truck-side edge is the most delicate: it carries gates or swing-out sections that close against the equipment so no gap is left to fall through.
• Anchor points where needed: when a gate opens to get closer to the truck, the worker is exposed. That is where certified harness anchor points go: the last resort, but planned for.
• Stairs, not ladders: if people climb several times a shift with tools, it calls for inclined stairs with handrails and landings. Vertical ladders are for occasional access.
• Floors that do not slip: welded grating or anti-slip plate. A truck shop has oil, mud, water and grease, and the floor must drain.
• Declared design load: people, tools and components set down temporarily. Allowable load is calculated and posted on a visible plate.
• Fixed, mobile or mixed: fixed platforms give rigidity and integrate with the building; mobile ones, on wheels with brakes and outriggers, adapt to different tasks. Many solutions combine both.
• Room for the cranes: the shop’s overhead crane must pass without hitting rails or canopies, and platforms must not block removal of heavy components.
• Built-in lighting and services: light on every level, electrical and compressed-air outlets, and a place to set tools down without leaving them at the edge.
• A finish for the environment: truck shops and wash bays are wet, aggressive environments. Hot-dip galvanizing and safety paint on rails and edges.
• Modularity: fleets change. A modular platform adapts to a new model with new pieces, not a new structure.
• Documentation: design calculations, drawings, welding procedures, material certificates and a use and inspection manual. The operator’s safety audit will ask for them.

Don’t do this: solve access to a 300-tonne truck’s engine with a portable ladder leaning on the fender, or with tube scaffolding put up “just this once”. Scaffolding is not designed for that use, the ladder slides on mud and oil, and the day someone falls, the investigation will find exactly that: there was a safe way to do it and it was not used.

Beyond the shop

The same logic applies elsewhere in the operation: wash bay platforms, where high-pressure water and mud make everything slicker; access to inspect truck bodies; tire-change structures; and platforms for loaders, drills and shovels. Every big machine has maintenance points at height, and each deserves safe access.

Tire changes deserve their own chapter. A haul truck tire nearly four meters in diameter weighs several tonnes and is handled with special equipment. Structures in that zone — supports, stops, platforms to reach the wheel nuts — are designed for impacts and loads that have nothing to do with an ordinary workshop.

Calculate, do not estimate

A maintenance platform is not sized by eye. It is engineered for the people, tools and components set on it, with a deflection limit that keeps the floor from “bouncing” underfoot, and mobile platforms are checked for stability with their brakes and outriggers. A platform that vibrates or shifts, even if it never falls, breeds distrust, and people end up back on the old portable ladder.

Install without stopping the shop

Most of the time, platforms go into a shop that cannot stop working. So it pays to design them modular, pre-assembled and with anchoring that takes a few hours per bay, coordinated with the fleet maintenance schedule. Before fabrication, the floor, drains, columns and crane path get surveyed so nothing interferes on installation day.

Platforms get inspected too

Once installed, platforms become equipment that must be maintained: gates that close properly, wheels and brakes in good order, undamaged floors, tight bolts and sound welds. A simple inspection plan, with a checklist and a frequency, keeps the platform safe five years from now, not just on delivery day.

What the operation gains

A good platform is not only a safety measure. It cuts the time of each job, because the mechanic works comfortably with tools at hand; it reduces damage to components handled without rushing; and it organizes the shop. In a fleet of dozens of trucks cycling through maintenance every day, those hours add up. The investment pays back in fleet availability, on top of lives protected.

General criteria for a well-built platform are in industrial platforms: what to demand, guardrail and stair numbers in industrial stairs and railings, and finishes by environment in paint, galvanizing or epoxy. At Indumor we design and build maintenance access platforms for mining equipment: modular, galvanized and documented, export-ready.

And back to the start: the harness is the last resort, not the first. First comes solid footing and a railing. Send us your fleet models and shop layout, and we will propose the platforms — in English.

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