The European market is focusing on regular improvements in upgrading technology to maintain stable and positive growth. Daniel Searle reports from Logimat, Stuttgart.

In mature markets such as Europe, the supply and use of lifting equipment has reached a generally reliable, safe and efficient level. Then, pushing technology forward—especially in a field that understands the basic physics of lifting and does not change—needs innovation to improve convenience or meet the needs of specific custom projects. Misia’s Aldo Carozzi said: “Customers want more customized solutions. In the past, less than 5% of our business was developing equipment for special projects, but now it’s about 20-30%.”

For Misia, which produces about 3,000 wire rope hoists per year, customized solutions can include hoists with long rope drops, curved monorails, special painting that meets IP66 requirements, special export ropes, etc.

"Our customers are mainly crane manufacturers," Carozzi said. "Anyone can make their own cranes. Therefore, we need to provide the best prices or the ability to meet their professional project requirements.

"Many of these specialized cranes are used in engineering applications with standard bridge cranes, such as underground construction, mining and dams-all of which require long ropes. "We can start with standard products and get customized parts. We modify the motor and crane body , Which helps us to produce professional cranes. Due to our long-term accumulation of experience in the hoisting market, this process has become easier and easier. "

Ralf Ullrich, the company's sales manager, said that as of 2018, Planeta has enjoyed a strong market, and the overall growth of the industry has benefited from more investment in projects.

One of the company's most interesting products is the JibFlex crane, which is distributed in Germany on behalf of the Danish manufacturer. It is made of a series of connected lightweight aluminum parts that allow the operator to move the crane boom around obstacles.

"It is designed for the offshore industry," Ullrich said. "We can provide models up to 7m long. The capacity of the 7m unit is 150kg, and the 3m model is increased to 500kg."

Ullrich said the company also displayed its aluminum mini lever hoist on Logimat, which is designed to be compact enough to fit into any toolbox. Provides models ranging from 250 kg to 3.2 tons, as well as 250 kg and 500 kg models of power hoist for drilling rigs.

Sanna Lempiäinen, Director of Sales and Marketing, said that Finland-based Erikkila is receiving more and more orders in a strong and growing market, and the German automotive industry is one of the company's major players. Demand is partly driven by new technologies developed by the company, including cranes controlled by its inverters. The inverter not only provides smooth acceleration and deceleration and reduced swing capacity, it becomes completely manual when the crane stops.

"Customers like it," Lempiäinen said. "The electric drive is developed in-house and can be used to fine-tune positioning or manipulate no-load."

The company produces light cranes with a maximum lifting capacity of 2 tons and has also developed internal conductor options for its aluminum cantilever cranes. Lempiäinen explained that the advantage of this is that it provides a safety system that does not jam like an external equivalent device and does not restrict the movement of the crane. The light weight of the internal conductive rails also reduces friction.

Vetter has developed its Ergoline crane system-a flexible modular system with adjustable struts that allows users to make final adjustments to uneven floors. The pillars are made of steel, and the runway and beams are made of aluminum. The system can provide up to 1 ton of capacity. Bert Van Den Bril, Vetter's regional export sales manager, said the runway and universal bearings allow operators to walk under slow-moving loads.

After Logimat launched Ergoline, the business has flourished. Van Den Bril said that Vetter's ATEX series products sell particularly well among customers in the Middle East. Belgium and the Netherlands also performed well, but have been calmer since February.

SWF Krantechnik, located near Mannheim, north of Stuttgart, displayed its Nova Silverline and Nova Blackline wire rope electric hoists, as well as Chainster electric chain hoists and explosion-proof hoists. The Nova Silverline series is designed for loads up to 80 tons and combines a series of features, including the best approach distance for lifting, a rope drum with extra large diameter to reduce rope wear, low headroom, minimal lateral hook movement and minimal The load swings due to the use of frequency converters. Nova Blackline offers a more basic version of Silverline, but with the same advantages, it can provide a capacity of 2 to 20 tons.

The load range of Chainster hoists ranges from 63 kg to 5,000 kg. In addition to standard functions, it also includes horizontal variable frequency drive, overload protection and non-contact limit switches to improve motion accuracy. All SWF wire rope and chain hoists and crane components are available in explosion-proof versions.

Demag launched the LDC-Q four-wheel chain hoist at Logimat, which is equipped with four hooks designed to allow simultaneous lifting and transport of different load handling accessories.

LDC-Q can carry loads up to 3.2 tons and is suitable for a wide range of production and logistics applications, including handling and transporting customer-specific load handling accessories or flat components and feeding materials into workstations.

This is based on the function provided by Demag LDC-D double ring hoist. For example, the system can be set up to combine two double chain hoists with only one drive, resulting in one chain hoist motor transmitting power to the other three chain tractors, creating a mechanically synchronized hook tractor that provides uniform and precise precision Load handling.

The company says it can handle asymmetric weight distributions up to 70:30. The system also integrates Demag's ProHub integrated variable speed control, which can increase the rated speed by 90% in the partial load range. Thanks to its modular design, quadro also provides quick and easy maintenance, Demag added.

The Demag booth also displayed its rope control system, which uses laser and camera systems to check the alignment and height of the rope, enabling operators to perform pre-maintenance. Logimat has innovations and new equipment. Stroedter highlighted its RollyxPlus aluminum rail system with integrated energy supply, which improves safety and reduces required space and assembly time.

Zasche showed off its jib crane with carbon fiber boom, which is sturdy but light in weight, and its specialized gripper attachment. It is currently designing systems for a range of companies, especially in the automotive industry.

RUD promotes its drive technology and its hook and chain series. The company provides RFID chips in all of its components for easy storage and access to maintenance and product information. Another innovation is the Plus 12 material used to make the chain. Due to its increased strength, the produced chain has the same diameter as the previous model, but with a higher capacity.

Indeva, headquartered in Italy, showed off its Liftronic series of electric manipulators. Liftronic Easy is the smallest in the series, but has many advantages, including keeping the load at a stable height when adding or removing weight, and the "floating mode" where the operator can use the load itself to lift the load. Indeva has also developed the Liftronic Air pneumatic manipulator, which can adjust the air pressure for different loads to ensure that the load remains at the same height.

The company also produces monorail systems and a series of standard and custom tools, including vacuum lifts, hooks and more.

Aybars Kaya, export manager, said that in Turkey, CMAK Crane Systems' business has grown, partly because of innovation. "Despite economic and political fluctuations, Turkish industrial investment has been increasing," Kaya said. "Due to continuous R&D, sales, marketing and after-sales activities, CMAK Crane Systems has increased its sales rate to the highest level every year."

Kaya said that domestic and international sales are evenly distributed. In its domestic market, CMAK mainly directly contacts end customers, while for international sales, CMAK conducts its work through a network of partners.

"CMAK currently has partners in six continents and 30 countries," Kaya said. "North and South America, China, Russia, Italy and the United Kingdom are the most active regions today.

"CMAK also has a sales office and warehouse in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, to store ready-made products, such as wire rope hoists with crane parts and spare parts, in order to provide partners with better, responsive and Fast delivery."

The research and development carried out by CMAK includes digitization, which is one of the key drivers of current crane innovation.

"Our HoistSense electronic control unit is an industrial 4.0 integrated and expandable version of the upgraded HoistSense.

HoistSense can be integrated into general industrial Wi-Fi or mobile data routers and connected to the Internet to safely initiate the flow of information to the CMAK cloud server to monitor and create monthly and annual reports and alerts for users in real time. In other words, HoistSense is a supervisor with crane artificial intelligence that improves crane performance by notifying end users when to replace brake linings, when training is required, and the exact conditions that are happening on their cranes.

"Customers are very interested in today's'Industry 4.0' or'Internet of Things' trends," Kaya said. "The implementation of technology affects society's values ​​by changing expectations and reality. HoistSense is a business intelligence that focuses on meeting customer needs, providing the best return on investment and best durability in the world market. "We attach great importance to Data Security. This is one of the distinguishing features of HoistSense-it does not accept connections from the Internet. In other words, there is only one way to access HoistSense for calibration and adjustment, and that is to connect to its hardware through a direct wired connection.

"We are also about to release the new CMX series wire rope hoist in the last quarter of 2018. This is a new wire rope hoist series with more advantages and ready for the next generation of speed regulations."

Eepos is a manufacturer of lifting equipment including monorail systems and cantilever cranes, which has performed strongly in Central Europe for many years. Marketing director Marcus Walter (Marcus Walter) said it is using this success as a basis for more innovation.

"Central Europe has always been a strong area for eepos. Despite various uncertainties in some European countries, our company has grown at an average double-digit rate in these markets over the years.

"We are currently working with the largest production capacity and expanding our range of aluminum modular cranes and profile systems to ensure that crane systems are meeting the increasing demand for digital applications in factories.

"We are also innovating solutions that require various media, such as electricity, compressed air, water, and other volumetric flows on the factory floor, and can be provided through our advanced'eepos base' aluminum media column." As a crane application In addition, we have designed a flexible and innovative power supply called'eepos powertrack'. For example, it can be directly inserted into the aluminum profile of the crane runway and provide energy quickly and safely at any point of production through various module boxes.

"The digitalization trend of factories in the automotive industry, mechanical engineering and other manufacturing industries provides many sales opportunities for innovative material handling companies like us. Our products run seamlessly in a fully automated production environment. For example, our "eepos one" The modular system has a load range of up to 2,000 kg, or our "nano" system is designed to handle loads and tools up to 75 kg, which means that it can meet the growing demand for crane systems in a digital production environment. "We are'portable Innovations in energy and multiple power sources are providing efficient and cost-effective solutions for digital factories. "

Walter said the development of new technologies has also given the company a firm foothold outside of Europe. "Innovation has always been at the forefront of everything we do at eepos, and we believe this has made a huge contribution to our success in the Asian market, and our penetration rate has grown steadily over the past few years.

"Similarly, despite the short-term political uncertainty, we are very active in the American continent due to the many long-term projects in our client's pipeline." Thomas Kraus of Stahl CraneSystems mentioned another political uncertainty, although in general The European market is healthy: "The business is currently doing very well-in general, the market is very strong, both in terms of quotations and orders. "In the short and medium term, we are confident about the expected strong market. But this always depends on the economy, especially how the US-China trade dispute will end. "

RUD has also seen steady growth in Europe. Although the market has been changing, Yasin Kartal, regional sales manager for conveyors and drives, said: "The European market is very good and it is still growing. But it is difficult to predict what will happen in the next three or four months. What, so you can only plan a short time in advance.

"A lot of changes have taken place in industries such as the automotive industry-some political, some regulatory-and laws regarding fuel types are constantly evolving."

Eugen Wagorowski, export regional sales manager, said that Kito's Düsseldorf office has been in Central Europe for 11 years and now has about 40 employees there.

"We provide training for service staff and sales teams in the office," Wagorowski said. "Central Europe is a difficult market because there are many competitors, but we focus on high quality and safety, and our dealer network. We have approximately 700 to 800 partners in Europe, and all partners have growth Potential-For example, one of our partners in Slovenia is now selling equipment that is worth about ten times the value of sales two years ago."

Gorbel is a very mature material handling equipment manufacturer in the United States and relatively new in the European market. The company is expanding in Europe through a network of dealers, one of which is the German company Expresso, an expert in lifting systems.

"We are relatively new in Europe, but we are expanding our coverage with major European distributors. We are a market leader in the United States and want to understand the needs of European customers and help our customers more effectively there," Gorbel International Operations Said Vice President Paul C. Lam. "Our initial business in Europe tends to be American companies with factories in Europe, and they are familiar with the features and advantages of Gorbel products. As more and more customers find that we have the best local distributors in Europe, we are There is also increasing interest in our G-Force among European manufacturers.

"The field of smart lifting equipment is doing very well. However, the trend of electric lifting systems is changing. This is where Gorbel comes in, because our G-Force is considered the best in the industry. G-Force provides the best The advanced and most mature technology is designed to help operators who want to handle various loads with the least effort."

In addition to distributing Gorbel products, Expresso also manufactures its own pneumatic gimbal. The interesting thing about this product is that it is removable and does not need to be installed on the factory floor. The height of the vacuum lifting system is adjustable, and the lifting capacity can reach 100kg. The company also produces fully customized attachments in different shapes and sizes, suitable for lifting, turning and moving.

Germany-based 3i also produces vacuum lifting equipment, including its extensive fully modular lifting kits. The design of the'Basic' lifting attachment is very quiet, which is particularly useful when multiple vacuum processors are used in the same facility.

3i Managing Director Christian Viehmann stated that the company has a team of approximately 280 people throughout the group and sells its lifting and handling equipment series to 25 countries. Its product portfolio also includes MobiCrane, a jib crane with a lifting capacity of up to 85 kg, and lightweight material handling equipment with a lifting capacity of mostly around 10 kg to 250 kg.

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