Flow in Motion supplies components to Florida container cranes

Flow in Motion LLC, Fort Worth Texas, is working with Woelfer Motoren of Germany to supply motors and other components for five container cranes.

Woelfer Motoren and Flow in Motion received an order for squirrel cage AC motors, gantries, trollies, hoists, and booms for the new ship-to-shore container cranes.The cranes are scheduled for delivery to Florida ports, with three headed to the Port of Jacksonville and two to the Port of Tampa next year.

The first shipment for the ports order left for Shanghai in April 2015. The components form part of Nidec Avtron Automation Corporation’s fulfilment to Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company (ZPMC) to provide the motors within the scope of work for the crane controls.

Richard Warriner, president of Flow in Motion, said: “Due to the nature of operations at ports, it is imperative that the drives provide reliability during continuous use. The peculiarity of container cranes is that they stand idle until a vessel comes in and then they must work continually until the freight for that port is completely unloaded. The vessel doesn’t make a dime sitting there; it only makes money moving cargo. Sitting in port with a full crew burning fuel while being unloaded costs tremendous amounts of money.”

Port Tampa Bay handled more than 36 million tons of cargo in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, 2014—nearly one-third of all cargo moving in and out of the state of Florida. The Port of Jacksonville (or Jaxport), meanwhile, is one of only 16 U.S. strategic ports on-call to move military cargo for national defense and the only one in Florida.