Knowledgeable crane distributors maintain a healthy profit margin by producing versatile products, lifting mechanisms that grow at the same pace a client’s business expands. We can clarify this notion by illustrating a stunted approach to this growth scenario. Imagine a less than stellar crane operator who manufactures overhead cranes. The product is functional and safe to operate, but there’s no vision to the fabrication strategy, no ability to alter the form to fit the customer’s warehouse workflow. After all, every ambitious business wants to succeed and develop, to add more space for fast-selling product. This increase in sales is mirrored by an increase in capacity on the warehouse floor, a ramping up of productivity and all of the subsequent changes to the work area that must be paralleled by ancillary equipment.
We don’t view overhead cranes as ancillary devices, but they do fit into the scenario we’ve just outlined, an environment where change is happening so fast that factory machinery can barely keep up. A customized overhead crane retains its functionality in this workflow model by adapting to the ebb and flow of a business strategy, particularly the growth part of this sequence. The system can be retro-fitted and installed atop older manual cranes. The crane structure is formed from runway sections and support beams, parts that are ceiling-mounted and easy to supplement. Just add a new series of runways and watch the overhead crane move further into the warehouse without disturbing the busy work area below.
The principles covered here have been discussed in part within our production speed up article, but the concepts examined tended to favour box-like environments. A truly customizable overhead crane incorporates all of the eccentric turns that typify the average warehouse interior. The designer measures this area to account for weird mezzanine locations and the occasional support beam obstruction, thus ensuring the operator can steer the bridge around these one-of-a-kind architectural features with a fluency that no cookie-cutter layout could ever match.
The load supported by the hook and cradle assembly determines the next set of customizable assets in the overhead crane design. This process integrates load and operator safety into the design strategy. Optional secondary restraints can be fitted when weight distribution is questionable. Perhaps the load has an eccentric outline and an indeterminable centre of gravity, or maybe the workflow requires several different products to cross the warehouse floor. One example of this potential circumstance is the movement of unwieldy vehicle engines with off-centre attachments. Specialized end effectors and hook attachments define this operational event, although this particular load maneuvering scenario is more a question of rigging than of customizing the crane.
Ceaselessly configurable and versatile during installation, an overhead crane retro-fits to adapt to older warehouse layouts but the framework is also ideal for new, state-of-the-art installations, as it adapts to workflow changes. The entire factory flow could change the way it functions, moving in completely new machinery, and the overhead crane would follow suit, adapting with newly extended or redirected runway components and a hook refitting.
