Application-specific hoists and cranes are helping Sandvik Hard Materials to boost production efficiency at its plant in Epinouze, which produces a wide range of cemented-carbide tools and components for automotive, aerospace, paper and other industrial sectors. Konecranes recently upgraded the lifting systems at this plant, providing a total of 25 new cranes and hoists.

Konecranes configured five of the lifting systems specially for this application, to fit into the restricted spaces available, and provide the optimum lifting automation. Among these lifting systems is a runway-mounted 1-tonne version of the XM crane that is used for changing tools on production machinery. The main machine shop has a low roof, so Sandvik designed a custom double-beam arrangement for suspending the hoist between the runways, to achieve the lifting heights needed. The solution allows a single crane to serve a much larger set of machines, improving productivity.

A further improvement in lifting efficiency was provided by Konecranes' SXN dual chain hoist: one hoist lifts the tool, the second is fitted with a frequency inverter drive which is then used to provide precision rotation of the load — allowing the tool to be aligned and fitted very rapidly — speeding machine tooling changeovers between production batches.

Konecranes won the order because it was willing to customise products to optimise performance.

"On this project, Konecranes' staff acted as if they were an in-house engineering department, helping us to squeeze a lot of sophisticated lifting equipment into the restricted spaces available in our Epinouze plant," says Frederic Boulay of Sandvik Hard Materials. "We've improved the efficiency of lifting in many areas, reducing downtime on key pieces of capital equipment in our production process."


Captions

Nr 1. Konecranes provided 25 new cranes and hoists to improve efficiency at Sandvik Hard Materials, including a runway-mounted crane used for changing tools on production machinery.
© Konecranes Oyj


Nr 2. Among the application-specific lifting systems is a dual chain hoist with a frequency inverter drive, which is used to provide precision rotation of the load — allowing tools to be aligned and fitted very rapidly.
© Konecranes Oyj


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