Servicing & Maintenance – An integral part of the crane manufacturing industry
No matter how well-designed machines are and how superior the quality is, wear and tear is unavoidable. Overhead cranes are no different. Periodic Servicing is essential to ensure – trouble free, uninterruptedworking, a longer life of components and safety of human life. Cranes are heavy material-handling equipment meant for industrial application. This involves a lot of rough and tough usage. Breakdown of the machine or its spare parts is a common occurrence and clients usually approach service centers post-damage. But as we all know ‘Prevention is better than cure’. It is better if they periodically inspect and service the crane to avoid such breakdowns.
Hence, periodic checks are not only advised, but also mandatory to maintain the machine’s condition. It is equally essential to follow the right procedure of check-up. All the spare parts must be checked individually.Client can opt for either monthly or periodic checks, depending on their usage. We recommend a check-up at a maximum interval of two months.
There are a number of aspects that affect the functioning of cranes. Lack of skilled staff to operate the crane is one major drawback. Mostly, it is unavoidable to employ untrained laborers in India. Hence, to ensure uninterrupted performance of the crane regular maintenance is mandatory.
Heavy engineering and construction companies use cranes for lifting and transporting their raw material, like cement, bricks, iron sheets, etc. Such continuous rough usage can affect multiple spare parts of the machine which are open to the environment. Check-ups are therefore critical for cranes.
The client’s application too has an impact on the wear and tear of the machine. If the crane is used in the chemical industry where it is constantly exposed to harsh chemical, dyes and material, it can lead to corrosion.
For longer life of the cranes and its components, it is critical that the machine is adequately painted with epoxy paints and inspected periodically.
Check-up and maintenance
There are two dimensions of check-up routines for a crane.
1. Electrical check up and
2. Mechanical check up.
When a crane is operated, it constantly vibrates. This may lead to loosening of screws or hinges.Hence, all joints are inspected thoroughly as a part of the mechanical check-up. The screws tightening the electrical contacts also tend to become loose thereby resulting in loose or lost contact.
For the mechanical check-up, the best way to check the machine is switching the machine on and trying to identify any unusual sound. If there is any potential problem, there may be friction or screeching, which will help in detecting it. Also, the engineer will check for any unusual warming up of a spare part.
If there is any part that needs repair or replacement, the engineer checks with the crane manufacturer for availability and the downtime required for troubleshooting, is communicated to the customer. To reduce downtime and minimize the loss due to stalled operations of the crane, it is advisable to ask the crane manufacturerfor a list of ‘Recommended Spares’ at the time of the crane’s installation.
After every servicing routine, a report is formulated. Documentation is very essential as it provides the history of the crane, its repairs and helps in its maintenance in the future.The maintenance manual helps us in giving efficient after-sales support to the customer.
For a year from installation, S Crane provides free-of-cost engineering and mechanical support to its clients. It is important for us at S Crane that our customers are satisfied. Hence, we have a dedicated team for after-sales service. There is a team of 17 engineers and qualified technicians just for servicing cranes. We keep adding staff to our servicing team as and when we expand our business.As manufacturers of cranes, we believe it’s equally important to provide efficient and long-term after-sales service.
Internationally, servicing is given great importance and most crane manufacturers provide after-sales support. A similar approach will help in India. It is also essential for the Indian consumer to understand the importance of maintenance and servicing. They need to realize that installing a crane is only part work done; the remaining part is good maintenance. The onus lies with the manufacturers to explain to the consumer and make him aware of how essential it is to have regular servicing. A crane is a machine and no machine can give its best performance unless it is well-maintained.
Taking cues from our global counterparts, we at S Crane have decided to expand our business by enhancing the servicing facilities. We are in the design stage to launch our service business to support our customers for the maintenance of their material handling equipments and to minimize their downtime cost in the event of breakdowns.
S Crane servicing centers planned at Mumbai and Ghimaniya will have stock availability of all spares and will attend breakdown complaints within 48 hours. Customers will get annual maintenance contracts not just for our cranes, but also for the cranes installed by other manufacturers.
For more information
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