Hanging in the balance

10/2001
Crane maintenance is a specialised job, which is best left to the experts in the field.
Extracts taken from Industrial Maintenance & Engineering; reported by Alex von Stempel, editor of Bulk Materials International.
The last thing a busy plant operator can afford is production being interrupted due to crane or hoist failure. Where cranes are process-critical, two hours can be a lifetime. Unscheduled downtime is what can cost a production manager a lot of money. Common types of failure occur when load ropes are cut or twisted due to shock loading or simply fatigue. Often this is only the beginning and the result - particularly with modern cranes, which tend to have tighter tolerances - can be costly. Damage to electrical cables or contacts is another cause of concern. As cables are bent forwards and backwards, fatigue sets in. This can lead to brake failure or a crane motor being put out of action.  

Boom or bust
Typically, in good times plant operators are more inclined to spend money on maintaining cranes and hoists than in bad times when some of them tend to scrimp and save. "What these operators may not realise is that when the good times come around again, they will not be able to work as efficiently as their competitors" says John Lloyd, Business Development Manager at Morris Material Handling. In extreme circumstances some equipment can even become dangerous.
Pressures on the manufacturing sector in the UK have become more acute. In the past, factories in the UK and elsewhere were shut down for up to a fortnight and maintenance teams were able to perform the necessary repairs during that time. This, of course, is no longer the case. Today many companies, including smaller ones, tend to operate skeleton crews to keep production going most of the time. Bigger customers tend to be better, simply because of the rigours of just-in-time manufacturing. However, production rate and equipment utilisation changes also mean that maintenance regimes have to be readjusted.
Specialised maintenance service providers now have to work out when they can fit a service into their customer's busy production schedules. Technical support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with work fully guaranteed is fast becoming maintenance service industry standard.


Outsourcing
Meanwhile a growing number of companies have outsourced their maintenance departments in order to save cost and space. As a result, they are benefiting from reduced stock levels and have been able to substitute a fixed cost (of operating an in-house maintenance department) for a variable cost.
From a customer's point of view, the value/price of maintenance service after outsourcing must be higher than the original cost of service when performed in-house. However, when calculated across crane lifetime costs, including lost opportunity costs for in-house resourcing, the savings by subcontracting to a specialist become clearer, specially, if those specialists provide performance guarantees.
Clearly, every customer wants to feel that he is unique and as M&R functions continue to be outsourced, industrial plant operators are beginning to realise that different maintenance service providers offer different things.

  
Wealth of experience
Morris Material Handling, which emerged as an independent company following a successful Management Buy Out of the business from receivership earlier this year, is the largest UK based manufacturer of cranes and hoists. It has had seven years of experience in providing maintenance service in the UK and has a network of 13 Material Handling Centres (MHCs) nation wide, in addition to over 200 independent distributors. The MHCs together employ approximately 100 staff, including many skilled technicians and "the company is growing," says Lloyd. Two new Centres have recently been opened in Cumbria and North West London.
"We maintain cranes that are up to 70 years old," says Roy Humpherson, one of Morris' regional managers. The MHCs operate hand-in-glove with Morris Parts Division, which gives them access to a number of unique services. The most important of these being Allparts and the Swift Order Shop (SOS). Allparts mission is to supply parts quickly for any crane, irrespective of its manufacturer. The SOS shop is a separate part of Morris's manufacturing facility for making urgently needed parts. When a part is needed for a breakdown, if necessary, the SOS shop works 24 hours a day to product it. "With this backup our technicians can go to
  site knowing that they can service any make of crane and obtain or manufacture almost any part they need" said Lloyd. Morris has recently won several significant maintenance contracts with major companies such as Corus, Hewdens and Infraco Sub-Surface Ltd (London Underground). Morris also services cranes all over the world, including the Far East, the Middle East and the Caribbean. It recently won a large maintenance contract with Alstom to maintain cranes in Taiwan.
Morris offers a tiered service approach. The company can provide anything from an annual inspection service, to a structured service agreement whereby repairs to certain levels are automatically guaranteed. Morris's unique all-inclusive Total Crane Care Package is designed to keep critical production cranes running for a fixed monthly amount with no surprises.