How to Select
The Right Crane for Your Business

A Guide to Workstation Cranes

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Introduction

As your business grows, you will need to keep up with the needs of both your customers and your employees. Your existing customers may be placing larger orders, or your customer base as a whole might be growing. If this is the case, you are probably looking for an efficient way to increase your productivity.

Along with efficiency, you also want to ensure the health and safety of your employees. If they are manually lifting heavy products, or even light products in repetition, that will eventually take a toll on their backs and legs.

One mechanical tool that can help you solve all of these problems without having to incur excessive costs, such as more employees or larger facilities, is a workstation crane.

You can download this White Paper as a PDF (650 KB) for your own reference or to share with your colleagues or view it as a separate html web page - How to Select a Crane

Summary

When selecting a crane, you should take several important requirements into consideration: application, manufacturing environment, physical restrictions of facilities, quality of the crane and long and short- tem costs.

It is important to make sure your engineer has all the details of your needs so that they can put together a crane that suits your unique situation.

APPLICATION

These factors include the weight of the objects you will be lifting and moving, the height of the lift, length and width of the move and the duty cycle of the crane including how often and for how long it will be used.

Your crane must suit your current production line. You want a crane that works with your system; you don't want to come up with an entirely new system just to accommodate one tool.

ENVIRONMENT

Will the crane be used indoors or outdoors? Is your environment corrosive or have extreme temperatures? Is it going into a sterile environment such a food manufacturing?

YOUR FACILITIES

When determining the type of crane and how it will be installed, you must take into consideration the limitations of your facilities. The roof, wall or floor structure must be assessed to ensure it will hold the crane and its load.

Installation should also be taken into consideration. If you have to close down your factory while someone installs a crane, you will lose a significant amount of working hours and therefore finished products.

QUALITY

You crane must meet the crane codes. Also consider the classification (C1 to C9) of the crane which advises its lifespan and duty cycle.

Additional considerations include the quality and consistency of the crane's material, the in-house quality control, and the testing process. Where the crane is manufactured may also impact its quality.

COST

The price of the crane is only the first part of this equation. You also must add in the cost of installation, maintenance, and the possibility for future expansion.