Remote services improves safety and maintenance of industrial cranes

Konecranes latest advancement in the service business, TRUCONNECT® remote services, gives customers access to actual usage and safety related data of their lifting devices through a remote connection.

With this information customers can plan future maintenance actions with increased confidence and they can also observe possible safety issues. In future, the TRUCONNECT offering will include a variety of distinct remote services ranging from periodic data reporting to real time diagnostics, technical support and production monitoring.

Remote monitoring and reporting is the core of the full TRUCONNECT remote services offering. In this service the usage data is collected from the equipment through a remote connection and compiled into web views and customer reports that are available through a secure online customer portal.

Easy-to-interpret reports include information about safety, operating statistics and service life of the equipment. As an additional value added service, safety alerts such as hoist overloads and other safety related information can be delivered to the customer by email or text message shortly after each occurrence.

“In the reports we emphasise safety issues such as overloads or emergency stops that have occurred, and how the maintenance can be optimised”, says James Dowe, head of service, APAC.

“As all data is based on real usage, it is possible to tailor the maintenance for individual cranes.”

Changing the game of crane maintenance

As a whole, TRUCONNECT remote monitoring and reporting provides an opportunity to optimise the maintenance of their equipment.

“It helps our customers not just to improve the safe use of their equipment, but also to help to plan the right maintenance at the right time and to assess the life-cycle of certain equipment components”, explains Qi’an Yang, general manager, Service China.

“Remote monitoring lays the foundation for real-time services. In the future it enables for example live diagnostics as well as technical support and advanced predictive maintenance planning.”

Backed-up by the industry’s largest service network

One of the core strengths of Konecranes is the company’s global service network, consisting of more than 3800 service technicians in 47 countries.

“We are the largest crane manufacturer offering maintenance and remote services to our lifting devices internationally”, says Mr Dowe.

“We now can provide our customer with both the skilled handicraft work of our service technicians and new, knowledge-based technologies like TRUCONNECT.”

Remote services are currently available for Konecranes CXT cranes for industrial applications and for SMARTON® cranes for heavy applications.

Mr Dowe says “Remote Monitoring and Reporting can also be installed as a retrofit package to existing cranes”.

“The remote connections are secured and isolated from public Internet and all the data traffic is encrypted."

“Data is stored also in a highly secured location.”

For more information:
Visit: www.konecranes.com

Multi tasking no problem for this bending machine

Large quantities and short set-up times benchmark thisr tube and profile cold bending machine.

Central production processes such as bending many different tube types must happen highly effectively. Frequent and long conversion work on the bending machine has the potential to bring production to a standstill. Schwarze-Robitec have developed the CNC 220 HD MW tube and profile cold bending machine which they say tackles this task highly efficiently with one multiple bending tool. At the same time, the plant’s measuring system ensures accuracy.

“If a user has to convert the machine every time a new tube bend is to be produced, the total production would be much too time-consuming and drawn out. The set-up times therefore need to be kept to a minimum, with the aid of multiple bending tools" says marketing manager Jurgen Korte.

The CNC 220 HD MW weighs 32 tonnes and is able to process tubes with maximum diameter of 219.1 by 12.7 millimetres – at a tube length of up to six metres.

Despite its size, the plant is extremely flexible. The multiple bending tool means a saving of up to 70 percent of the set-up times of conventional plants. The CNC 220 HD can process tubes in different materials such as steel, copper-nickel-iron alloys and stainless steel on one tool and with no conversion work.

Thin-walled and thick-walled tubes with different diameters can be bent.

“With this clever tool concept, we can handle the broadest range of material standards and tube shapes. The set-up times between the various versions are minimal. There is no need for conversion of the plant. A variety of production data is saved in the system,” Mr Korte says.

The integrated Spring Matic measuring system determines the rebound of the tube after initial bending. It is then immediately “re-bent”. The result is convincing – the bend is executed to accuracy of half a degree.

“This is an exceptionally precise value considering the size of the plant and the tube,” Mr Korte says.

The fact that this plant concept guarantees great economic advantages for users is obvious. The short set-up times ensure that downtimes remain low and machine use high. As such, the market success of the CNC 220 HD MW is no surprise: Schwarze-Robitec has sold around 50 machines so far.

For more information:
Bert Zorn, Schwarze-Robitec GmbH
Phone: +49 0 21 890080
Email: sales [at] schwarze-robitec [dot] com
Visit: www.schwarze-robitec.com

Consolidation efforts for leading crane operators

By Iain MacIntyre

NZ Crane Group has consolidated its headquarters in Auckland following the sale of its Wellington branch to Titan Cranes.

The development is expected to see a closer business relationship evolved between the two former competitors. It enables NZ Cranes to focus on largescale commercial building, infrastructure and civil projects from the one geographic base. Managing director Deane Manley is confident the move will bring “significant added value” to both parties.

“NZ Crane’s decision to base its operations solely in Auckland is part of a wider strategy for stronger delivery in all parts of the country,” he says.

“With all operations running from head office and a more streamlined approach to our business, in many ways NZ Crane will be better equipped to deliver marketleading mobile crane hire throughout the country.

“While NZ Crane and Titan have always enjoyed a healthy competition, the two companies are also well aligned in terms of their work practices, professionalism and investment in the industry.

“With the sale removing geographical competition, NZ Crane and Titan will have opportunities to work together as partners on projects that require more complex deliveries or, conversely, recommend each other’s services where the situation calls.”

The terms of the sale announced in the middle of last month will mean the closure of the Broken Hill, Porirua operation, which provided mobile cranes and support trucks ranging in capacity from 10 tonnes to 220 tonnes.

The majority of cranes on the one-hectare yard are being rolled into the Titan fleet, bolstering its already strong offering in the Wellington market. Four machines are being relocated to NZ Crane’s Auckland base – a 220-tonne Grove All Terrain machine, a 20-tonne City Crane and two 10-tonne machines from City Crane.

Mr Manley says the parties have liaised with the affected seven Wellington workers – four crane operators and three support staff – with a collaborative approach taken to securing their future employment.

“Two staff have accepted NZ Crane’s offer to transfer to Auckland, one has taken up other contract roles in Wellington and a further three have been offered employment by Titan.

“NZ Crane will continue to work with the remaining staff members to ensure he is presented with short-term work opportunities both with NZ Crane and elsewhere until a full-time role is found.”

Expressing optimism about the purchase and the service benefits it will deliver, Titan chief executive Gordon Stone also sought to reassure his and the former Wellington customers of NZ Crane that his firm would now be offering an expanded crane fleet and greater staff numbers in the region.

“The purchase of NZ Crane’s Wellington operation along with addition of six new cranes to our fleet this year enables us to supply an extremely good range of cranes to our existing and new customers, not only at our Wellington operation but at our other branches in New Plymouth, Christchurch and Dunedin,” he says.

“We will be working hard in the coming months with an eye to improve our service in the area and to gain a better understanding of NZ Crane’s existing customers to ensure a seamless transition for those wishing to work with Titan.”

Milling made compact and cost-efficient

Productive and cost-efficient, the Seco Square 6-04 is a compact square shoulder milling tool with six edges per insert, for small and medium-sized milling machines. Seco's latest addition to this milling tool range includes an M-geometry, reduced diameter shanks and one more shell end mill.

Seco's Square 6-04 range of cutters has brought the six-edge productivity of the bigger Square 6-08 down to the 20-millimetre (0.75 inch)-diameter range.

"In this type of milling, an important diameter range for cutters is between 20 and 25 mm (0.75-1.0")," says Tapio Alatalo, product manager at Seco.

"Square 6-04 is a complement to its larger sibling and to cutters with one-sided inserts."

Square 6-04 is available in diameter ranges from 20 to 63 mm (0.75-2.5"). The cutters have between two and 10 pocket seats equipped with indexable triangular inserts with three edges on each side, a total of six per insert. The maximum cutting depth is four millimetres in both axial and radial directions.

"It offers great productivity, and the cost-efficiency of six-edge inserts is also an advantage," says Mr Alatalo.

With six cutting edges per insert the cost per edge is reduced compared to alternatives with fewer edges.

And since each diameter of cutter is available in two pitch versions - coarse and close - the material removal rate can be balanced against stability for optimum performance in different applications. Square 6-04 is suitable for a number of methods including face, slot, side and plunge milling, both in roughing and finishing operations.

A precision component specialist in France is one of the first companies to put Square 6-04 to the test. The application was ninety-degree side milling of a rotor shaft in regular carbon steel. Using Square 6-04, the number of manufactured parts per tool setup increased by 400 percent compared with an alternative tool with two-edge inserts.

Square 6-04's inserts come with M-geometry in seven different grades with a focus on steel and cast iron, and include options for difficult-to-machine materials. The latest addition is a light cutting M-geometry for stickier substances, such as soft steel and stainless steel. There are two corner radii - 0.4 and 0.8 mm - that, together with the triangular shape of the insert, allow for true 90-degree walls. All in all, this boils down to a flexible performance tool for many machining applications, such as engine blocks in the automotive industry.

"Square 6-04 is spot-on in its application area," says Mr Alatalo.

Looking closer at the technical features, there are many small details that contribute to the performance of Square 6-04. The two sides of the insert are marked with one and two dots, respectively. This allows the inserts to be rotated in three steps on each side, one step at a time, as the edges are worn. If this is done in the same way on each insert, all edges will be subjected to the same cutting conditions, resulting in longer tool life.

Another benefit is that radial and axial runout is kept down, which gives better dimensional accuracy and surface finish. The latter is also supported by a large wiper flat on each edge, which normally leads to improved surface finish. Low cutting forces also mean that both power demands and energy consumption are kept down.

"We have worked hard to optimise the cutting edges without compromising on their strength," says Mr Alatalo.

The carbide inserts have a thickness of 3.97 mm, and the seven grades available come with DuratomicTM coating. A positive rake angle, together with a strong cutting edge, provides low cutting forces and secure machining. This makes Square 6-04 even more suited for small- and medium-sized milling machines.

But no milling occurs without a cutter body. In this case there are four alternatives to choose from: cylindrical shank, Weldon shank, Combimaster® head and a shell end mill. With the latest tool range extension, the shell end mill is available from 32 millimetres (1.26 inches) in diameter. The extended range also includes reduced diameter shanks. All types are Ni-Cr coated and pre-hardened to create a durable surface with long tool life. The inserts are fastened with one Torx screw each in pockets on the cutter head, designed to protect the edges on the side that is not in operation. The pockets have been copy milled, which, together with the pre-hardening, give excellent tolerances in terms of insert position. This makes Square 6-04 an accurate tool with a high-precision setting angle and runout.

For more information:
Visit: www.secotools.com

Kingston Flyer on track for bumper summer

New Zealand’s most iconic steam train is gearing up for its second season on the rails following a winter-long maintenance campaign.

The Kingston Flyer, New Zealand’s most famous vintage steam train, set in the spectacular mountain scenery of the Queenstown Lakes District, came about when gold was discovered in the Wakatipu district in 1862. The need to connect the district by steamships and steam trains became apparent.

The railway line at last reached Kingston 16 years later on July 10, 1878 and a public holiday was declared by Queenstown Borough and Lake County Councils. David Bryce and the Kingston Flyer team worked diligently in the lead up to the first season in 2011/2012 to ensure the train was fully up to operational standards – and had always planned a full maintenance overhaul this winter.

With no previous boiler inspection records available from the receivers of the locomotives when he bought it, Mr Bryce initiated a major strip down of the boiler of locomotive AB 795 to secure its continued reliability for decades to come.

“It’s been a very busy time during winter, and a huge investment was required, but when ibought the train imade a commitment to New Zealand and the community so it has to be done,” says Mr Bryce.

“The boiler has been inspected by Stork Technical Services of New Plymouth and a small list of repairs has been identified and is now underway.

“All is better than expected for an old girl built in Addington in 1927.”

Having taken on the task in August 2011 to secure the ownership of the Kingston Flyer for New Zealand in perpetuity, Mr Bryce said it was “all go” to get everything operational and licensed for last summer.

Now with a small repair to the front tube plate, two new stays, and full replacement of tubes in the boiler, it is predicted there will be another five decades ahead of pulling the carriages from Kingston to Fairlight and return twice daily.

The off-season winter period, has traditionally been the time for annual maintenance of the locomotives, carriages and railway line.

“As with everything mechanical, we expect there to be annual maintenance, and locomotives are no exception,” says Mr Bryce.

He said the support of the wider community meant a very successful first season was enjoyed with more than 16,000 passengers riding the rails.

“To have such a strong first season was very reassuring as an owner, but our goal, of course, is to get even more visitors riding and enjoying the train this year.

"We’ve already been recruiting staff for summer, we’d like to hear from any others keen to work on the train or cafe operations.

The second season of the Kingston Flyer Railway will operate two trips a day during the 2012/13 season, launching in time for the New Zealand school holidays at the end of September and running until April 30 2013.

Heavy weight and high precision

Machinery Movers and Tranzcarr Heavy Haulage Ltd partners Warwick Bell and Dave Carr operate three Lift-N-Lock series hydraulic boom gantries capable of lifting and placing with precision loads of up to 435 tonnes in tight surroundings, the only such equipment in the country. It was a logical if expensive step to buy the first of the gantries in 2002.

At the time a sea change was underway in an industry that had for decades lifted heavy equipment in confined spaces by jacking up the corners, using hardwood blocks to hold it up and then skated them out on planks.

After 30 years of refinement and development a US company had produced a gantry with a one lift cylinder inside a single boom, doing away with problems previous models had with an uneven sharing of the load which could cause the load to sway and suffer from oil leakage.

After some research, director Dave Carr settlled on the Lift-N-Lock series produced by J&R Engineering, a third generation hydraulic boom gantry packed with safety features and the added bonus of being capable of moving the equipment substantial distances on site on detachable tracks.

Now all that was needed was a job to help pay for the six-figure investment. “BHP New Zealand Steel needed to lift an 80 tonne turret fitted between two bays. It supported ladles of molten steel which were rotated from one bay to the other. It was about four storeys up and was assembled when they built the place,” says Mr Carr.

“The slew bearing was shot so they needed a way to lift up the top half to change the bearing – they couldn’t get anywhere near it with cranes and were looking at strand jacking it off the roof trusses.

“I said there was a better way to do this – we will bring in a gantry specifi cally for the job but we need eight months. After a lot of meetings they gave us the contract. “The only reason the gantries came to New Zealand was because BHP NZ Steel believed what we were saying to them that we could lift it with this hydraulic system. And the lift worked perfectly,” he says.

Still, for five years the gantries did not make any money, after which it slowly picked up on the back of the company’s business of carting transformers.

“Today the power sector accounts for about 80 percent of the work for the gantries. Anything that is switch yards and high voltage – this equipment does not need the headroom a crane does. To lift a 100 tonnes with a crane you would probably need about 40 metres of headroom – with this equipment you need two,” says director Warwick Bell.

“There is a lot more involved than just having the lifting function – you have got to be able to do the transportation and the rest of it, so its a big package you need to invest in.

“We have done jobs off-shore, taken this gear to Australia and the Pacific rim and done jobs over there. We spent a year in Thailand getting Fisher and Paykel set up. People in the heavy industry know us and have used us – like Culhams in Whangarei to the timber industry in Kawerau and the aluminium smelter in the deep south,” he says.

But there are many specialised applications for the equipment as well and special projects manager Don Mann has been behind most of them since the units were imported in 2002.

“The equipment is not only capable of lifting ultra heavy loads but it places them with precision – we can get it within a micro millimetre if we have to,” he says.

“We handled the installation of the flight simulators for Air New Zealand – that is a lot of that equipment that is ultra ultra sensitive. It comes in a packaged form, but inside the building there’s very little head room and to assemble these in a room that’s already finished is pretty challenging.

“We had to lift it up while they put all the hydraulic jacks and hydraulic equipment underneath and lower it with exact precision. The flight simulators might only weigh 97 tonnes compared to a generator at 370 tonnes, but there isn’t a big difference in the price of the equipment,” says Mr Mann.

“When Fisher and Paykel did their big appliance move to Thailand a few years back we were approached to help. They had some really big and expensive machinery.

“F&P wanted as little downtime on the machinery as possible and that suited us because we could take a piece and we could handle it to and from the ship and installation in Thailand,” he says.

“The company took one of the gantries to Thailand and left it there for a year, so we had a gantry working at both ends.” Mr Mann and his team went back and forth at least a dozen times over a 12-15 month period.

“It was the best way to do the job and the most cost-effective – but more importantly it kept their downtime to a minimum so production could be got up and running.

“Altogether about 12 shipments were made – we got the first shipment set up in Thailand and they were able to start production while we got the next shipment delivered and so on. Only with the use of the gantries could we have done it that efficiently,” says Mr Mann.

“Fisher and Paykel was a model contract, no more so than power stations where we are doing single lifts up to 400 tonnes with not a lot of room to move.

“We are currently working at the Te Mihi power station and the whole project is being built around us. We just lifted the first 180 tonne generator about 10 metres high and walked it in about 40 metres and we have another to do shortly.

“To date we have successfully completed more than 1500 individual lifts with weights ranging from five tonnes to 405 tonnes.”

Innovative CNC honing machine speeds production of precision gears

A high performance 11-axis CNC system from NUM has enabled machine tool manufacturer Sicmat SpA to create a gear honing machine that sets a new industry standard for a post-hardening fine finishing.

Using an innovative honing wheel with external teeth, and an ultra-precise application-specific CNC program developed by NUM, the Grono 250 machine provides the accuracy of gear shaving – but in a process that is applied after the gear has been case hardened – and eliminates the need for shaving and grinding stages.

Sicmat is a leading manufacturer of gear finishing machine tools for the automotive and automotive supply industries.

Until relatively recently, the company specialised exclusively in machines that used shaving technology to obtain the necessary finish to gears; this type of finishing process is used extensively by companies producing medium to high quality gears for the automotive industry.

However, shaving generally has to be performed before the work piece is case hardened by heat treatment, and any heat-induced deformation then has to be corrected by grinding or honing. Sicmat therefore set out to develop a high power honing machine that would help gear manufacturers accelerate production throughput by reducing the number of process stages.

Until now, gear honing automation has used highly specialist machine tools, comprising circular ring type assemblies with teeth cut in their internal face. These tools are expensive and time-consuming to set up. Sicmat believed that by using a honing wheel with external teeth, the accuracy of the process could be improved to such an extent that it could replace gear shaving in many applications, with the added advantages of lower tooling costs and much simpler set up.

Initial research conducted in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering at Turin Polytechnic University – Italy’s top engineering university – proved the practicality of the proposed new method.

A key requirement of honing automation is that it must have extremely high mechanical rigidity, to ensure accurate and repeatable results. So, Sicmat chose to base its new honing machine on the proven mechanical platform of its RASO TP 250 gear shaving machine.

Developed over many years, this platform has exceptional stiffness and resistance to vibration – its bedplate is created from electro-welded steel filled with anti-vibration bonding, and the head, frame and tailstock manufactured from cast iron.

The platform’s physical layout provides excellent accessibility for operation and maintenance, and its vertical work piece positioning simplifies integration with other production line automation.

The Grono 250 has eight motion axes, plus another three on an associated robotic loader, all controlled by a NUM Flexium CNC system. The motors of all 11 axes are driven by high power density NUMDrive C servodrives, and the overall system is equipped with two NUM MDLL 3050 regulated power supplies.

Each power supply is rated at 50kW continuous and uses regenerative braking to maximize efficiency. The main machining axes are operated by direct-drive motors, while the honing wheel and work piece axes are driven by powerful high torque motors, which are synchronised and controlled by application-specific software developed by NUM.

According to Marco Battistotti, director of NUM’s Italian facility, the company’s ability to develop custom software was a major factor in Sicmat’s choice of CNC systems provider.

“For this application, Sicmat needed specialist control software to provide extremely tight synchronisation of the machine’s honing axes. They also wanted to partner with a CNC company that was familiar with highly integrated machine architectures and prepared to handle custom engineering in parallel with their own development efforts, which are some of NUM’s key strengths.

"The success of our collaboration was apparent immediately the first machine tests were run; the finished gears were of exceptionally high quality.”

Every stage of the honing process on the Grono 250 machine is automated for efficiency. In normal use, the case hardened work piece is removed from the production line conveyor by a robotic handler/clamp unit, which identifies the type of gear by checking its outside diameter before transferring it to an integral preprocess measurement station.

Here, the work a piece is synchronised with a secondary gear, then driven into a mesh and rotated through a complete revolution; during this time, the displacement between the two axes is measured continuously to ascertain how much stock material needs to be removed from the work piece, and this data is fed to the Flexium CNC system.

After measurement, a further robotic handler transfers the work piece to the honing stage, where it is initially indexed before being run up to speed and synchronised with the abrasive toothed honing wheel. The honing wheel is then driven progressively into mesh with the work piece. The two axes operate in a unique master-slave configuration that has zero delay of the slave axis, which required NUM to create a second master for the work piece motor.

Controlling the speeds of both these axes very precisely, and fractionally varying one relative to the other, facilitates fine adjustment of the honing process. Current-generation Grono 250 machines are capable of spindle speeds of 7,000 rpm, and Sicmat is already developing a machine with spindle speeds of 10,000rpm to provide even tighter process control.

As soon as the honing process is complete,the work piece is disengaged from the honing wheel, spun to remove coolant and then transferred back to the production line by the robotic handler.

Sicmat will be present at this year’s International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago. The company’s booth’s engineers will be pleased to discuss the unique cost-saving advantages of the Grono 250 gear honing machine. NUM will also have a large booth at the show, where the company will be highlighting its expertise in developing custom CNC software for OEMs and machine builders.

For more information contact:
Steve Moore, NUM (UK) Ltd,
Tel: +44 871 750 4020
Email: sales [dot] uk [at] num [dot] com
Sicmat SpA,
Tel: +39 011 9667348
info [at] sicmat [dot] it,
Visit: www.sicmat.com