ABUS EOT cranes in a factory making precast concrete in West Sweden
The company Benders Sverige AB (www.benders.de) produces precast concrete elements where Volvo was building cars not so long ago. The company has been expending ever since it was founded in 1959. In 2013 the Volvo building was bought which ramped up the potential production area to 100,000 m². Benders Sverige AB started production early in 2017 and is currently using about a quarter of the existing area. Another 10 to 20% is rented out to other companies at present.
Benders produces precast concrete parts such as floor and wall elements as well as stairs and balconies. These concrete and reinforced concrete elements are produced either individually or in large scale production. The parts may weigh up to 14 tonnes. Structural parts with large dimensions in particular pose a great challenge for transport and logistics. Mr Stefan Persson from product development at Benders commented: “Our sales organisation in West Sweden is still in its initial stages, yet our order books are full until 2019.”
Always keeping an eye on logistics
Numerous components are built in large series. High rise buildings for example are designed to have similar or identical walls on each floor. Oftentimes there is only a small time window of about half an hour for precast concrete elements to be delivered to the building site. Therefore it is not only the swift and smooth transport of concrete parts to the customer that is a challenge for Benders but also the factory side transport and loading onto lorries that has to be carried out in a fast and save way.
Speed married to sensitive driving performance
It was in May 2017 that the first delivery of four double girder EOT cranes ZLK took place. These ZLK had spans of 19.3 metres and safe working loads of 14 tonnes. A further delivery of six EOT cranes followed with identical dimensions and technical characteristics. Several of these cranes feature service platforms making it quick and easy to access the hoists for service and maintenance. A number of cranes have two identical electric wire rope hoists working in tandem ensuring that large concrete elements are transported safely within the factory and are loaded securely onto lorries. In addition to the double girder EOT cranes a single girder EOT crane ELV was supplied with a smaller lifting capacity of 8 tonnes. There were also several hundred tonnes of steel that were built into a crane track 80 metres long for the cranes to travel on. Lateral guide rollers ensure that the cranes are guided closely along the crane runway rails and that track guiding forces are reduced.
“All of the ABUS cranes used have to cope with the rough production environment” explained Mr Johan Tholinsson, the sales person responsible for this project at JJ-Gruppen in Kungsbacka, the subsidiary of the Swedish daughter company of ABUS, ABUS Kransystem AB (www.abus-kransystem.se).
Requirements as to speed have been met with travel speeds of 60 m / min. The ABULiner ensures sensitive travelling performance. It is thanks to this frequency converter technology that all three movements, i.e. lifting and lowering as well as crane and hoist travelling, facilitate infinitely variable speeds when transporting loads reducing load sway considerably at the same time.
Stefan Persson valued the combination of price, know-how, and advice and support provided by JJ-Gruppen when it came to managing this project but also their flexibility when plans had to be changed: “We are entirely satisfied with our new crane systems.”
In the meantime Benders Sverige AB is expanding further. Installation and commissioning of further double girder EOT cranes is already planned for early 2019.
