From Spain at one end of the Mediterranean to Greece at the other, makers of lifting machinery are thriving. Among their priorities are reducing carbon footprint and increasing the use of digital technology. Julian Champkin reports.
The Spanish foundry Irizar Forge has long been known for the massive hooks, sockets and sheaves it forges from single blocks of metal for the lifting industry, on and off-shore. At the end of last year it announced, as a major goal for 2023, that it would significantly reduce the company’s carbon footprint. To achieve it Irizar had started the process to certification, before 2025, of an energy management system based on the ISO 50001 standard. As an exercise in transparency Irizar has registered this with the relevant Spanish ministry. The company is calling this energy transition project Green Forge. “The aim,” says Oier Sarasola, Irizar’s global offshore sales manager, “is not only to adapt to future legislation on climate change but also to use the opportunity to improve efficiency as a whole, and so increase the competitiveness of our products and services,” so the company’s carbon savings will lead to cost savings as well.
This seems on the surface counterintuitive. A forge by necessity needs a lot of heat, and therefore a lot of energy; for a very large concern such as Irizar to go low-carbon is therefore a considerable challenge and hugely praiseworthy.
A metal-working facility such as Irizar’s needs a large number of overhead cranes. Irizar is based at Lazkao in the Basque Country; Jaso, the large and international crane-making concern is also Basquebased, headquartered in nearby Idiazabal. Irizar Forge is one of the main suppliers of hooks to Jaso. Jaso in return has supplied the Irizar foundry with a fleet of ten overhead cranes for its foundry.
The largest are two 32t double-girder cranes, one of 16.22m span, the other slightly shorter at 14m. Other doublegirder machines range from 6.3t capacity upwards. There is also a 5.0t, 14m span single-girder crane.
Among all of these, the 29.5m, 18t double girder crane stands out. It is part of the forging manipulator, which has the job of handling steel parts at 1,200°C while they are being forged in the presses. The crane also transports parts between the furnaces and the presses. It has been designed therefore to withstand the extreme conditions of a forge.
The crane has a special open trolley.
“The most outstanding feature is the machine’s manoeuvrability in confined spaces, as it can perform simultaneous movements on several axes,” says Jaso’s Antonio Naranjo. “As to capacity, the crane has been designed to withstand the high reactions that are generated due to the fact that the weight of the part to be handled is very far from the vertical axis of the manipulator.”
Further to the south is yet another internationally renowned Spanish hoistand crane maker. GH is headquartered in Barcelona and, like Irizar, has made reducing carbon emissions a key part of its strategy. GH not only manufactures overhead cranes and gantries: boat-lift hoists are also within its remit – we are talking the Mediterranean here, where leisure boating might as well count as an industry – and GH in November 2022 introduced what they say is the world’s first all-electric rubber-tyred gantry boat lift boat lift.
The diesel propulsion system of conventional boat hoists has been replaced by a modular battery system, and the hydraulic circuits that drive the hoist movements now instead have an electric circuit and drives.
The GH70e is powered by a highperformance, lithium-ion battery core – enough onboard storage, GH says, to deliver a full day’s work – and can lift vessels of up to 65 tons. Solar panels are built into the top frame of the gantry – they can supply up to 20% of the daily energy uses, says GH – but there is also a built-in charging device that makes recharging easy. The gantry itself is variable in span, which improves the dry-docking efficiency for boats with different beams. It has electronic steering as well. The battery has a ten-year guarantee.
Ander Etxebarria is director of GH’s e-Motion Business Unit. He regards the launch of the electric marine boat hoist as a worldwide milestone.
“Although there are electric marine boat hoists that have made the transition from hydraulic to electric, there are none with a scale comparable to the one that we have produced,” he says. The GH70e has “all the functionalities that a normal hydraulic marine boat hoist would have, and even some extras”.
“To begin with,” says Etxebarria, “by removing the diesel engine and eliminating CO2 emissions and high noise levels, we also eliminate oil leaks, which are a sensitive issue for boat yard owners since they are companies that work by the sea.”
And the savings from the solar panels are significant: “We have already seen how some customers, after a use of the machine that is not very intensive, have not needed to charge it for several days thanks to the contribution of the panels.”
The GH70e is the first of GH’s electric maritime models, but the company has dry land electric rubber-tyred gantries as well, designed for light industrial use. Again, the power is from lithium-ion batteries with the same ten-year guarantee and built-in charging. Here, the batteries are modular. The gantries come in three versions: single girder, double girder and U-shaped, to provide the flexibility this sector requires. On these dry land versions it is the gantry height, rather than the width, that is adjustable: they have telescopic legs to ease moving equipment into and out of industrial warehouses without emissions or leaks.
SELF-ATTACHING HOOKS
Irizar is not the only major Spanish maker of hooks: Barcelona-based Elebia is also a world leader. Its speciality is in automatic self-attaching hooks – aids to efficiency and also to safety, as they eliminate the need for a human operator to get fingers, hands or any other part of themselves into the danger zone where the hook meets the shackle or load.
Until now, Elebia’s automatic latching systems have been operated magnetically, mechanically by contact with a spring-released probe, or by using the company’s remote control systems eMini, eMax, and eInst.
In January this year, Elebia launched eLink, a central control system for its automatic hooks that can be operated from mobile and smart devices. The innovation is that it is based on the web. It is a huge advantage.
The system is a plug-and-play concept that allows users to automate material handling processes, monitor hook status, conduct remote service, create reports, and oversee lifecycle management. It is installed in the crane panel and features user and password logins, different profiles and access levels, and central data acquisition and control systems. It communicates with the user through a web application interface.
“There are multiple scenarios where controlling hooks via a web-based system is advantageous,” says Oscar Fillol, founder and CEO at Elebia. “For example, you can control all hooks with the same remote control of the crane, or on a multi-hook lift you can block lifting action with the ‘safe lift’ function, which does not allow the load to be lifted if even one of the hooks is not closed. Another common situation where eLink is very useful is in the case of alarm settings: either when a load is unbalanced or when there is an overload.
“It takes an already state-of-the-art lifting portfolio one step further, to facilitate hook control, automation, adjustment of working parameters, and integration with cranes and other devices,” says Fillol. “In short, Elebia products are now Industry 4.0 ready.”
It is compatible with the entire Elebia range of hooks, clamps, grabs and shackles. “It complements the eMini, eMax, and eInst systems; so a customer could be using eMini to send the open/ close instructions while the eLink is used to log the data, avoiding unsafe lifts, and trigger alarms.
“But the aim of the eLink is not to eliminate the user; it is to assist them and make everything easier and safer,” Fillol adds. “ It allows automation and safer lifts, but the user is still needed. He or she must always be able to see the lifting operation. The next step will be adding cameras and expanding beyond eight the number of products that can be connected at the same time.”
Moving eastwards, Italy is renowned for its engineering, and has enough makers of cranes and hoists to fill an article by itself, which is exactly what it shall do, at a later date in this magazine. So, for now, let us move on eastwards again.
Bulgaria has an established cranemaking concern that has been in existence for more than 60 years and that has sold a very large number of units over that time. Podem has its roots back in the 1960s, in the era of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc. Back then, of course, its industry was state-controlled. In April 1961, the relevant state ministry decided to build a production company to supply the crane manufacturers in Eastern European countries and the then Soviet Union with electric wire rope hoists. Within the year, Podem started production of its type T hoist. Since then it has sold more than 1,900,000 units, which it says, with probable justification, is the greatest number of a single type ever sold in the world.
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