# Safe and compliant loader MEWPs in underground mining | QMW Industries > When a wheeled loader carries a work platform, it becomes a MEWP in the eyes of the standards. Here's what that means underground, and how QMW's Q-PILOT control system delivers it. ![](/assets/img/news/q-pilot-test-rig.jpg) 3 November 2025 · Acacia Ridge, QLD # Safe and compliant loader MEWPs in underground mining When a wheeled loader carries a work platform, it becomes a MEWP in the eyes of the standards. Here's what that means underground, and how QMW's Q-PILOT control system delivers it. Wheeled loaders do a bit of everything in Australian underground hard-rock mines. Fitted with a man-basket, an integrated tool carrier can lift people to install services, charge blast holes and scale a face, with no separate elevating work platform or scaffold required. The productivity case is obvious. The safety case is more demanding. The moment a loader carries personnel on a platform, it is a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP), and it has to meet the engineering and operational rules written for purpose-built lifts, not the rules for earthmoving plant. ## One machine, two rulebooks Australia has no single standard governing wheeled loaders used as MEWPs, so operators sit across overlapping obligations. Industry bodies point to two benchmarks: - **AS/NZS 1418.10** covers design and construction: static and dynamic stability, overload protection, emergency descent, dual-circuit load-holding valves, rated-capacity limiting and interlocked controls. - **AS 2550.10** covers safe use and maintenance: pre-start checks, routine inspections, six-monthly engineering reviews and ten-year major rebuilds, plus operator competence and record-keeping. Boom platforms reaching beyond 2.4 m need design registration and periodic verification; lifting above 11 m requires the operator to hold a High-Risk Work (WP) licence. ## Why it matters underground Put a basket in the air and the machine's centre of gravity climbs with it. A minor irregularity in the floor can become a tip or a violent jolt, and tight underground clearances add crush risk between basket and back. Investigations into real incidents keep finding the same causes: non-compliant equipment, missing interlocks and inadequate inspection. That's why a loader MEWP should be treated as a Group B, Type 2 platform: travel controlled from the base, speed held to a crawl, height limited and communication constant. In many cases, no movement while elevated remains the safest rule of all. ![Integrated tool carriers working on a mine site](/assets/img/news/q-pilot-loaders-site.jpg) _Integrated tool carriers on site: one machine, many jobs, and MEWP obligations the moment a platform goes on._ ## The Q-PILOT approach QMW developed the **Q-PILOT MEWP control system** to build that compliance into the machine. It is an electro-hydraulic platform with dynamic stability monitoring, inclination sensing, load-sensing hydraulics, proportional controls and automated interlocks. Connect a work platform and the system recognises the attachment, limits ground speed to a crawl, disables unsafe functions and arms dual emergency-stop circuits. With more than 200 installations across Australia and overseas, Q-PILOT has become a benchmark for engineered control on integrated tool carriers. QMW backs every installation with the engineering to match: static and dynamic testing, design registration, certification and operator documentation, with 200% load testing to confirm the safety margin. Used as a work platform, a loader has to be engineered as a true MEWP, and that is exactly how we build them. Get in touch ## Talk to our engineering team Questions about this, or a build of your own? We'll point you to the right person. [+61 7 3275 2544](tel:+61732752544)[sales@qmw.com.au](mailto:sales@qmw.com.au)53 Success Street, Acacia Ridge QLD 4110[Talk to the team](/contact) --- [HTML version](https://www.qmw.com.au/news/q-pilot-mewp-underground-compliance) · [All pages (llms.txt)](https://www.qmw.com.au/llms.txt) · [Sitemap](https://www.qmw.com.au/sitemap-index.xml)