APPLICATION-SPECIFIC CRANES BOOST PRODUCTIVITY AT WORLD-LEADING ENGINE MANUFACTURER

Wärtsilä's upgrade project targets a major increase in the plant's assembly and testing capacity. Refurbishing an existing factory unit imposed a number of special considerations for the design of the lifting equipment. These included limitations on both weight and overall dimensions, as well as a need to make the cranes compatible with a tracked conveying system that transports engines through the manufacturing and testing processes.

With very strong demand for its products, Wärtsilä needed to find a crane supplier who would work closely with its project team to create application-specific solutions, but also one that could deliver rapidly — to make sure the plant reached its new manufacturing capacity goals on time.

Konecranes won the competitive tender, because of the high-performance technical solutions it proposed, its ability to devote the resources required to meet the tight project timescales, and the close cooperation established between the local management staff at Wärtsilä and Konecranes. Wärtsilä's decade-plus cooperation with Konecranes on power plant projects, where Wärtsilä orders standard crane configurations at agreed rates as projects are won, also gave the project team the confidence to trust the supplier with such a critical task.

A wide range of cranes and lifting equipment has been produced by Konecranes' Italian plant for this project. Numerous modifications to the company's standard designs have been made. The structural steelwork of two large cranes, which will lift loads of 200 and 125 tonnes, had to be modified and fabricated using stronger 355-grade structural steelwork for example. These modifications compensate for limitations on crane weight and dimensions, as well as assisting in meeting the coverage areas that the work cells demand.

The large cranes in particular, are contributing to increased productivity, as Wärtsilä had previously been forced to employ a combination of two smaller cranes with a spreader bar, to move its largest engines.

Another key technical requirement has been the minimisation of oscillation of the very large loads, for safety reasons in a crowded production floor, and to protect the extremely valuable loads. Two special features in the cranes have helped overcome this problem.

All the cranes are fitted with Konecranes' own-design DynA inverters for controlling the speed of the electric motors — which are also highly optimised for lifting applications. Most lifting equipment makers use off-the-shelf inverters that have general-purpose capabilities targeted at common applications such as driving pumps. Konecranes' inverters are purpose-designed for lifting applications. They feature extended frequency control ranges, providing operators with fine-resolution control, which is further exploited by control software that understands how crane loads behave. The crane installations at Wärtsilä Trieste are additionally optimised with the Konecranes' DynAPilot anti-sway system, which automatically damps load swing by employing intelligent motion profiles. This feature makes life easy for operators, allowing smooth movements to be performed very quickly.

Numerous other modifications and features were employed by Konecranes to optimise the cranes' performance. These include an overspeed function that automatically senses no-load conditions and speeds movement by 50%, substantially increasing productivity. All of the smaller cranes also use 'energy chain' cable guides, rather than festoon cabling, to minimise size in the densely packed environment of Wärtsilä Trieste’s production floor.

The new lifting equipment is radio controlled. Because of the large number of cranes supplied for this project — over 20 — and the need to integrate the radios into a production area with a large population of similar controls, Konecranes decided to employ the DECT digital radio standard as the platform for its remote control software, RemoX. This provided the large number of channels required, and eliminated interference problems.

Almost all of the cranes have now been delivered and installed, ahead of Wärtsilä's project completion target.

"The new cranes will contribute to improved productivity and efficiency in our manufacturing process," says Mr Sergio Razeto, Vice President of the Delivery Centre Trieste, and President of Wärtsilä Italia.

"Our cranes are a key element of a production line that is now a showcase for heavy-equipment manufacturing efficiency," adds Maurizio Tansini, Operations Manager of Konecranes Italy. "We have helped to increase production density and speed throughput—all while normal production continued— and are proud of our role in a project that positions Wärtsilä to take advantage of major growth prospects in this market."

Figure text 1: A completely new crane and handling system from Konecranes has helped Wärtsilä to radically improve productivity at its ship and power plant engine production facility in Trieste. Special anti-sway control software allows operators to move the large and extremely valuable loads smoothly and rapidly

Figure text 2: Konecranes modified the structure of its crane to fit a 200 tonne crane into a restricted space, helping Wärtsilä improve productivity substantially compared with a previous dual-crane arrangement.

For information please contact:

Derek Reece
Director Sales and Marketing
Direct +44(0)1215691000
Mobile +44(0)7866381602
Fax +44(0)1215691099