Automation and smart features are driving the overhead lifting sector in South East Asia. “2016 was an exciting year of innovation and exploration in industrial automation, though the trend toward automation and greater efficiency in the manufacturing and industrial sector is not new to us,” says Karl Tilkorn, regional managing director, MHE-Demag. “While our customers from various industries have started to automate their processes, advancement in precise positioning methodology as well as sensors, controls and software place us in the leadership position in engineering, manufacturing, installing and servicing both automatic and semiautomatic cranes.
“The demand for automation and process efficiency will increase and improve the overall demand for automatic or semi-automatic cranes in the region. “Another trend observed is the increasing demand for online monitoring of crane status. In the past, crane monitoring and preventive maintenance were manually planned and conducted with high dependency on human behaviour and input. Besides the costs of monitoring, it also results in unnecessary preventive maintenance or risks of downtimes.
“Recently MHE-Demag has introduced our Demag StatusControl, which is a wireless remote access system for cranes and hoists that delivers, analyses and evaluates data in real time. Customers can access the remote monitoring system directly via our intuitive software tool, which they can use in the same way on their PC or tablet. The traffic light system shows what needs to be done straight away. Demag StatusControl enables our customers to precisely schedule the maintenance work and they are always kept up to date on the risk of any possible downtime.
“Engineering innovation is another highly sought after criteria. One of the upcoming trends is delivering cranes with reduced size and deadweight for the same lifting capacity, allowing customers to reduce the costs of supporting structures and associated maintenance for dragging unnecessary dead loads around. In short, lighter and better. MHE-Demag is the only leader who is capable of supplying this cutting edge technology and it is delivered through our latest crane innovation, the V-type crane. Tapered diaphragm joints are specially designed to accommodate pressure and tensile forces and improve oscillation characteristics by up to 30%.
On average, the Demag V-type crane is 17% lighter than conventional box-section profile girders thanks to its revolutionary design. This reduces the forces transmitted to the existing support superstructure and gives architects greater freedom for planning new building layouts.”
Tilkorn says the company has been operating in the region for more than 40 years. “Our customer base is spread across various industries, served by eleven manufacturing facilities and over 60 sales & service offices within the region,” he adds. “As our core business is in overhead cranes and hoists, our main customers are primarily from industries that require raw materials or finished product lifting, such as the manufacturing and logistics sectors. MHE-Demag is also appointed for many major developments in various countries for industries such as steel handling, waste to energy plant, power plant and so on.”
MHE-Demag operates within a closeknit regional network and supplies to Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Timor-Leste, Thailand and Vietnam. Over the years MHE-Demag has supplied 26,000 industrial cranes, 20,000 dock levellers, 2,000 building maintenance units and 180 car parking systems with more than 6,000 bays to the region.
“Located in over 60 locations with a dedicated workforce of more than 1,600 well-trained staff across the region including 700 responsive service engineers and technicians, an attentive back-office and intelligent IT infrastructure, we also have the biggest after sales service network in South East Asia. For instance, in Indonesia, we have just recently launched our 27th location in Bitung,” Tilkorn says. “We think that the South East Asia region will grow proportionally. MHE-Demag has ventured into emerging markets such Cambodia and Myanmar and we expect more activities in these areas in coming years.”
Investments
“Investments in oil and gas industry will remain low and as a result of this, the supply of new cranes to this sector will be affected,” Tilkorn says. “However, MHEDemag is effectively able to continue to support the oil and gas industry in their difficult times, by refurbishing existing equipment at significantly reduced costs, whilst returning the equipment to as good, or even sometimes better, condition than when handed to us. This is owing to the extent of the engineering capacity within MHE-Demag. Energy generation and conservation are an unstoppable trend and therefore we foresee more investment will be put into the waste-to-energy sector.
“Another factor that will affect the overall lifting industry is the increase of commodity price, such as steel. Companies will have to strike a balance between price competitiveness and profit margin.” Maxim Lee, heavy lifting technology manager at South-East Asia Enerpac, mentions the possibility to do “mixed investments” in this region. “For example, the slump in oil and gas has seen many fewer related projects in the entire region in the last few years,” Lee says. “This is expected to continue and the same applies to mining. Infrastructure projects spearheaded by governments such as the high-speed rail in Singapore and Malaysia, railway lines in Thailand, metro lines in Vietnam, bridges in Myanmar will take a long time to materialise. There are still small pockets of opportunities in between.”
Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering used an Enerpac synchronous lifting system to launch a 43,000t offshore oil platform. The challenge was to lift, balance, weigh and smoothly launch a 43,000t floating oil production system for the Gurmusut-Kakap offshore Malaysian oil field. Enerpac PLC-controlled 700 bar synchronous lifting technology was used to individually control 352 compact, high-pressure 300t hydraulic cylinders incorporated in groups into active skids beneath the steel structure. It was able to sense and control any deflection within the required range of 210mm over a 70m span of pontoons and the main superstructure.
Sustainable productivity
T K Mak, industrial equipment general manager at Konecranes APAC, explains that it is becoming increasingly important to be able to supply equipment that helps companies improve sustainability and reduce their carbon footprint.
To enhance productivity, Konecranes has a range of Smart Features to meet customer requirements. This ranges from target positioning and sway control to fully-fledged automated warehouse management and inventory system. “In tight labour market countries like Singapore, automation is the way forward,”
Mak says. “Customers are increasingly aware of the benefits of Smart Features and it is quite common to find such requirements in their specifications.”
Abhijeet Das, marketing and communications manager at Konecranes India adds: “In India and Bangladesh, where heavy process industry like steel, power, automobile have huge presence, the focus is more on safety and ease of maintenance. Tailor-made cranes provided for the steel industry include a redundant hoisting system to ensure the safety of the load, which is sometimes liquid metal and quite risky if it falls. Even if one of the gearboxes or input pinion fails, the load will not fall and you can still complete the operation at 50% speed.
“In these cranes, we also provide an antifreefall system which does not allow the load to fall in case of failure of either shaft or coupling of motor and gearbox.”
The product range comprises lifting solutions for process industries, industrial cranes, and workstation lifting systems, including components such as wire rope hoists and electric chain hoists. The Konecranes range of CXT wire rope hoist cranes can be suitable in nearly any industry where lifting capacity of up to 80t is required.
Automation and smart features are driving the overhead lifting sector in South East Asia
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