Mastering machine tool cranes  

Plazar Manutention, an industrial handling specialist and partner of handling equipment manufacturer Verlinde, has designed and commissioned a 30t overhead crane at the machine tool production plant Amada.

Setting up an installation for the handling of this type of load, which is extremely heavy but fragile, requires great expertise and highly dependable handling equipment. Plazar Manutention assists its customers in the design and the choice of handling solutions as it has for the last 17 years. It carries out preliminary studies for the installation of new equipment but also for the modernisation and regulations compliancy operations of existing installations. The company also takes care of  maintenance.

The installer’s objective is to ensure the availability and the working order of lifting and handling equipment throughout their life span. Since the company was set up, Plazar Manutention has always chosen Verlinde for its new equipment because in the words of CEO Mr Desveaux, “Verlinde is a guarantee of quality and compliance.”

Amada, a manufacturer of machine tools acknowledged the world over, has worked with Plazar Manutention for the last ten years for the maintenance and upgrading of its overhead cranes and lifting equipment for its Loire Valley plant. It was Verlinde who had recommended its partner when problems were encountered with the existing service provider. As the years passed, a relationship of trust was built up. When Amada decided to expand its production plant, the company  unhesitatingly consulted Plazar Manutention.

A custom designed and built overhead crane to meet the specifications for the handling of new types of machine tools It involved installing a new overhead crane with a load capacity of 30t in an adjacent building where machine tools are stored and loaded on trailers. Amada recently initiated the production of new machine tools with an increase of weight from the former 17t to 25t. The storage facility had to be much more spacious above all to accommodate a new overhead crane as load capacity of the existing ones was limited to 20t.

The plant produces some 20 machines monthly. The selected Verlinde lifting equipment meeting handling requirements is a VT4 hoist in the EUROBLOC range. This range alone, catering for the needs of loads from 800 to 80,000kg has been awarded 13 patents. This type of hoist is fitted for instance with variable speed travel for more accurate positioning of loads together with short pulley block vertical movement enabling almost TVL.

Entirely safe, it is fitted with an e-monitoring system for the recording of types of duty of the hoist (MT2 unit) and four fully streamlined travel wheels. The constraints of the Installation.

The constraints were first and foremost structural; as an existing building was involved, the floor had to be sounded to make sure it could support such a load. A 6m bore hole was ordered by a surveyor with the aim of determining the thickness required for the concrete layer at the base of the overhead crane, along with its steel runway. Terrain stability for this type of application is indeed crucial.

Plazar Manutention custom-designed an overhead crane with a load capacity of 30t that was delivered on site as partial assemblies. It was assembled in one week. From the boring operation to commissioning in April 2020, the project took just 45 days.

Plazar Manutention’s responsiveness was much appreciated. Desveaux concluded, “We had already gained the trust of Amada by our quality of service and our recommendations throughout the ten years of our collaboration. However, this resulted in a boost to their trust.”