What does the Future hold for the Maintenance of Gantry Crane or Portable Gantry?

Posted on September 6, 2017 in Gantry Cranes

There are three basic reasons for developing new technologies – to help us save our money, to make our lives easier, or to save someone’s life.  The same applies where materials handling and overhead lifting technologies are concerned, but what about the future of maintaining a gantry crane or portable gantry? Over the years, the operation of these devices and similar equipment has changed dramatically.  Crane operators can be more efficient and much safer now thanks to variable frequency drives.

But has anything changed in the way these pieces of equipment are being serviced? Will there be any significant differences between the ways this equipment is serviced today versus 5 to 10 years into the future? Because of the evolvement of technologies over the past two decades, you have to wonder what the future holds for servicing and maintaining the gantry crane or portable gantry of tomorrow.  Needless to say, the advancements in crane and gantry technologies have been nothing short of amazing. They are more versatile and easy to handle than before.

Whenever your crane or gantry is getting serviced or a technician is troubleshooting this equipment, they are examining it exactly the way they see it in much the same way that a mechanic sees your vehicle.  It stands to reason then that if your equipment does not act up or malfunction while it is being inspected, that the technician will have a more difficult time of identifying what is wrong with it.  One of the recent innovations that were developed so technicians could look at a device’s past history is the condition monitor.

However, this is by no means the latest technology as it was developed over 20 years ago.  In fact, data collecting devices in this particular industry have been in existence since the late 1980’s.  This device helped technicians to identify any problems that were causing a gantry crane or portable gantry to malfunction.  This includes a number or issues such as crane starts, load swings, material overloads, overheating, and usage hours for example.

So what does will we see in the future of crane and gantry maintenance? For one, it will be more proactive.  For instance, we may see technology that accurately predicts when equipment breakdowns and failures will occur.  Imagine having the ability to inspect a crane or gantry without interfering with production or even having a technician come out to your project site.

You could identify components that are wearing out and know exactly when they need to be replaced or get notified via text messaging whenever an operator just picked up an overweight load of materials.  This type of technology involves real-time analytics and monitoring which are key production and safety features.  Most importantly, you’ll be identifying a potential problem before a gantry crane or portable gantry breaks down.

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