Product of the Month – Machinery Moving
A festive memory came to mind when considering our Product of the Month for December – Machinery Moving.
Remember, before computer games, every Christmas stocking would include a fiendish puzzle?
With a tiny silver ball that had to be guided along a shallow channel and through umpteen holes the equivalent distance of driving from London to Cape Town to solve?
Or a block of interlocking pieces of wood that had to be fiddled with for about 3,000 years before it could be picked apart?
(Or, in the case of most sensible children, fiddled with for about two minutes before being tossed under the bed).
Problem solvers
Well, members of Hird’s machinery moving team probably solved those puzzles in a matter of seconds (along with the Rubik’s Cube when it appeared in 1974).
Before moving on to meticulously dismantling a Terry’s Chocolate Orange and lifting individual segments into their mouths with a Meccano crane they had built from scratch in the intervening 20 minutes.
You see, Hird’s machinery moving professionals are problem solvers par excellence.
They also happen to have some extremely cool kit to help them dismantle and lift machines at one location, take them to another, and put them back together, exactly as they found them.
Lift planning
Hird has been carrying out a myriad of different machinery moving projects, as contract lifts, for clients across the UK for over four decades.
Each one has its own set of challenges – like an individual puzzle – but the challenge remains the same: the job has to be completed to the customer’s requirements, on time and in complete safety.
Our teams work with our customers’ engineers to understand the specific parameters of every machinery moving task. They develop a detailed lifting plan to lift out machinery in the most efficient, effective and safe sequence.
After a maintenance process, the machinery may then have to be lifted back into place.
Or, a new piece of machinery may need to be lifted in to relace it.
Or, the machinery lifted out (now broken down into quite a few different parts) may need to be transported to another location and reassembled, under the guidance of client engineers.
It can be complicated. Hence, the puzzle solving prowess.
Electric mini cranes
Hird regularly carries out the lifting out and movement of single items of machinery through to large turnkey CDM-managed projects anywhere in the UK.
The process begins with a free site survey carried out by one of our senior machinery moving professionals. All are Appointed Persons. They then draw up a detailed lifting plan, or plans.
Industrial sectors Hird teams regularly work in include data centre installation, aerospace, dockyards, heavy engineering, food manufacturing, and medical equipment .
They operate a large fleet of zero emissions and low noise electric Valla pick and carry cranes that support safe and effective machinery moving in all industrial environments.
The mini cranes are ideal for lifting in highly-controlled, regulated and clean spaces, such as food factories, precision manufacturing plants and petrochemical sites.
All machine moving services and equipment comply with BS7121 Safe Use of Cranes, PUWER and LOLER regulations.
Can-do approach
Experience counts for everything in machine moving.
Because all projects present different challenges, putting together the components of a lift is a process of applying lessons learned from many different jobs, potentially stretching back many years.
Hird combines this experience with a meticulous approach to planning and implementation and a can-do approach to every task.
This is where the puzzle solving really comes into its own.
Many industrial sites have been developed over decades, with legacy structures and equipment creating significant access challenges and risks.
This can make just reaching the machinery that needs to be lifted the biggest challenge. Overcoming that challenge safely and cost-effectively may not be immediately apparent.
But a flexible response to solving each lifting task means Hird’s machinery moving team will find a way.
Mobile crane lifts
It helps having the right equipment. Central to every Hird lifting plan is application of the most appropriate lifting and moving machines and techniques.
That could be something as simple as a set of machinery moving skates and a choreographed process to apply them safely in a constrained space.
Or it could require deployment of one or more cranes – whether that be mobile cranes, Valla pick and carry cranes or Maeda spider cranes.
Mobile cranes will be used, in most cases, to lift equipment in external environments. An example is Hird’s project to lift a redundant extraction system from the roof of a wood mill using two mobile cranes.
However, it is not unheard of for factory roofs to be dismantled to allow mobile cranes to lift out machinery.
Where necessary, specialist accessories, such as bespoke lifting beams, see right, will be designed and manufactured for projects that involve large or irregular objects.
V for machinery lift
More commonly, for lifts in internal industrial spaces, Hird will deploy one or more of its Valla pick and carry cranes – sometimes along with a mobile crane to lift the mini crane into place.
The mini cranes have been specifically designed for machinery lifting, removing and installation tasks in the most difficult of industrial settings.
Now, Hird’s teams can use a growing fleet of Valla V cranes – a new range of electric pick and carry cranes that set industry-leading standards in terms of compactness and flexible lifting.
Many versions of the cranes are operated, in drive and lift modes, with a wireless remote control unit, allowing the operator to position themselves in the best position .
A recent example was the use of a Valla V210R crane (this one had a sit-in cab), with a maximum safe working load of 21t, to lift and move a vessel into a very tight plant room.
The process tank was 9m long and 4.5m high. Precision driving by the Hird crane operator moved the vessel into the plant room and then turn it through 90 degrees to where it needed to be located.
Hird also positioned two compressor units in the plantroom and two oil coolers outside it.
The precision of Valla pick and carry cranes make them perfect for tandem lifts. An example was another industrial vessel lift and installation carried out by a Valla V110R (SWL 11t) and a Valla V60R (SWL 6t ).
Find out more
Got a machinery moving puzzle you need solving? Talk to Hird today. Our machine removal, transportation and installation teams are ready to assist.
Telephone: 01482 227333. Email: [email protected].