69
march 2015
international
construction
CRANES
Lifting innovation
for a given lift, without sacrificing safety or capacity. Using
less counterweight than with a traditional crawler crane of the
same capacity alsomeans less for the customer to purchase and
transport from site to site.
“The VPC is game-changing technology,” said Manitowoc’s
senior vicepresident for crawler cranes, JohnKennedy. “Thisnew
technologywill have a significant impact on the lifting industry,
as it enhances crane capacities, reducesmobilisation time on the
job site, and in the end, saves customers a significant amount of
time andmoney.”
>
Cranemanufacturers have faced some
tough times over the last year, but
the newmodels keep coming, as do
innovations to increase capacities and
make cranes easier to use on site.
Chris Sleight
reports.
Lifting innovation
F
ollowers of financial results over the last sixmonths or so
will be aware that several cranemanufacturers have fallen
on hard times. Revised forecasts and weak 2014 mid-
year results from the likes of Manitowoc and Terex pointed to
a fall in demand for cranes in several emergingmarkets around
theworld.
Butdespitethebusinesschallengesofthe lastyear,manufacturers
have been pushing ahead with newmodel introductions and a
striking number of new innovations.
Although the crane industry is relatively small and served by
only a fewmanufacturers, there have been some interesting new
ideas introduced in the last year, challenging some of the design
norms, whichmay have seemed ingrained.
A good example is Manitowoc’s introduction of a variable
position counterweight (VPC) to its crawler crane range. The
300 tonne MLC300 and the 650 tonne MLC650 have this
feature, which automatically positions the counterweight on a
rotating bed, based on changes in boom angle.
Manitowoc says this means customers don’t need to put in
as much work preparing the ground for crawler cranes, and in
many cases canwork on poorer groundwith less counterweight
Manitowoc describes
its variable position
counterweight (VPC) system
for crawler cranes as a
“game changer.”
Manitowoc and
Samson have
developed a
synthetic rope for
cranes. Lighter
than steel, it is
said to be easier
to handler and
less prone to
damage.
