Konecranes aiming to reduce downtime and raise efficiency

November 17, 2014 3:31 pm

 Konecranes is serving a broad range of customers including manufacturing and process industries, shipyards, ports and terminals. Regardless of lifting needs, Konecranes is committed to providing with lifting equipment and services that increase the value and effectiveness of business. Saeesh Nevrekar finds the current market much demanding and explains Konecrane’s way to meet the ever-growing needs in the field. 
Demanding marketIndian market is developing at a rapid speed and is now more demanding than ever. Today, customers have become very keen on the delivery time of equipment to avoid the cost of delay in projects. Fuel efficiency is also one of the important factors and many a times it plays a crucial role in decision making process. After sales service and availability of spare parts are also of great concern to customers.
Nowadays the trend in the material handling industry is to build material handling equipment (MHE) that is smaller in size and smarter in operation. On the other way, there is also a great demand for equipment with advanced automation solution, different remote controlling and monitoring facilities to operate the equipment with least human involvement and to get the information, reports on the actual usage and condition of the equipment to prevent the sudden breakdowns and production losses. Konecranes’s shareThe industrial cranes segment is about 500M EUR as per market study done by the company in 2012. In 2013 Konecranes net sales was EUR 2,100 million globally; and our compound annual growth rate has during the past ten years been 12 per cent.                                “We focus on providing complete crane maintenance service and to help customers reduce the downtime and improve the efficiency of operations,” says Mr Nevrekar.
Konecranes focuses on to provide the features which not only make the crane operation fast but even safer, thus increasing the productivity of the customer’s business. Its advanced service offerings help customers keep the cranes running always and prevent sudden breakdowns which results in heavy production losses. The company’s strategy is to be one stop solution for the lifting requirement and to work as a partner with our customers.
Special features offeredKonecranes has a long history of innovations which enables us to provide many advance features which ensures the overall safety of a crane and helps in increasing the productivity, like the ‘sway control’ feature which helps to reduce accidents by preventing load sway and keeps the load steady even if an inexperienced operator is handling the crane.  The ‘adjustable working limit’ feature defines the area in which crane is allowed to move, so the operation of crane can be restricted to a particular area of plant.
Advanced remote monitoring service can measure and record the data of crane usage and it can be sent to centralised technical service team. By recording this data one can check how the crane is being operated, the maintenance can be planned well and the overall operation of the crane can be monitored. Remote monitoring service provides many benefits to customers, it unlock the power of information to customers and allows one to see the concrete facts about the crane operation and usage. It also helps to improve safe crane operation, supports usage-driven maintenance and hence saves on annual maintenance cost.
Business module Konecranes business is arranged into two divisions – Equipment and Service. Business Area Equipment offers electric chain hoist, profile track cranes, standard EOT cranes, process cranes, container handling cranes to shipyard cranes and forklift and reach stackers.
Business Area Service offers service and maintenance solutions for all industrial crane brands, like annual maintenance contacts, on call repair, crane rail inspection, rope inspection, crane modernisation services to crane reliability survey.
CXT UNOIn September, the company launched a new product, CXT UNO for emerging markets in Pune. The CXT UNO combines a strong range of features based on a simpler set of components and technical solutions compared to existing CXT products. This simpler design, together with easy access to spare parts, means that the CXT UNO will be easy to maintain. CXT UNO is designed to meet basic lifting needs at a competitive price.
It is a robust and compact crane for everyday lifting. Some unique features are 2-speed lifting as wall travelling movements, a light structure tagline power supply for hoists, a simple and lean bridge panel mounted directly on the end carriage, and in-house welded profile girders.Manufacturing potentialKonecranes Plants at Jejuri, Pune are state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities, which can manufacture more than 1,000 cranes. Spread across huge area of 1.85 acres which has 2 manufacturing facilities, administrative building, stores, advanced simulation training centre.
Factory is having advanced and automated equipment which do work with precision and limits chances of human error. In terms of production, quality and performance norms have become the single stringent parameter that determines efficiency and durability.
“Keeping quality in our mind we have a dedicated facility for manufacturing components. Quality is maintained with stringent quality tests done at each and every step of production,” assures Mr Nevrekar.
One of the unique things carried out in this facility is, FAT- Factory Acceptance Testing, in which cranes are tested before they are dispatched to customers. India, being geographically well placed, gives it a lot of opportunity to utilise this facility, believes the company.
——————————————————“We focus on providing complete crane maintenance service and to help customers reduce the downtime and improve the efficiency of operations,” says Saeesh Nevrekar, Country Manager, WMI Konecranes India Ltd.