Proactive Measures to Crane Maintenance for more productivity and safety
Crane Maintenance for enhanced productivity standards


He elaborates, “ There is an increased demand for cranes to enhance productivity standards along with higher availability requirements in conjunction with enhanced lifecycle. This is due to steep variation in the external dynamic forces acting on the cranes during hoisting and precisely heavy lift operations. Taking cognizance, all our crawler and tyre mounted cranes are now EN 13000, based on advanced European norms. This is much advanced than the earlier DIN standards. The advanced standards highly focuses on safety and leaves no room to bypass the operation of the cranes mainly while lifting. While it ensures that there are no room for the operators to lift higher loads, at the same time it has kept reserved 25% lifting capacity. Based on the higher safety norms due to the advanced standards, Liebherr has carried critical improvisations in the boom, winches, motors, pumps and all supporting equipment. Based on the advancement, required training is rendered to our maintenance personnel.” Liebherr has set up a new simulation-based training centre in Kolkata and Mumbai. The simulation facility along with enabling the operators to get acquainted with the functionalities of the cranes alsosu assists towards trouble shooting to identify the case of defects during operation.

“The cranes are being made more robust so that they can withstand higher external dynamics during operation and while hoisting heavier loads, and to give them a longer life span. So, we are improvising with ropes, strengthening the fabrication of booms, turntables and the superstructure, improving the welding through submerged arc welding and semi-robotic welding, all of which is being backed by our strong in-house R&D,” he says.
The company is also training operators and service personnel on real machines so that they can understand the design advancements being made and carry out the right maintenance.


The company has set up an operator training program with Crane Owners Association of India, following completion of which, operators are examined and certified by IESC (under CII). So far, 150 operators have been trained.