Everest: Drives Business on Rising Luffing Cranes Demand
Since application of electric luffing cranes is in its nascent stages in India; how would you improve sales?
I agree that the Indian construction fraternity has deficient information on electric luffing cranes and their utility. However, the cranes have numerous advantages over the conventional flattop and hammer head tower cranes. Although, I will not dissuade the usage of conventional tower cranes altogether as all the cranes have their own application orientation, nonetheless, the electric luffing tower cranes have their own distinct advantages. We are eagerly trying to impart knowledge on utility of the cranes, dovetailing the advantages and the value it can pass on to the project during the course of its construction. The cranes are highly suitable for both commercial and residential highrise projects, above 150 meters and also in industrial projects. I am sure, construction companies in India will agree to the benefits being offered by the cranes leading to their acquisitions in the near future in a major way.
Elaborate on the advantages of luffing cranes being offered? How can the initial higher costs of the cranes be justified?
Pricing of electric luffing tower cranes is higher minimum by 10-15% as compared to conventional tower cranes. However, in contrast the benefits are immense and can be justified on the basis of the safety attributes of the cranes. Being safe to operate, the cranes greatly minimized construction time which otherwise can be extended owing to accidents, not unnatural in Indian high rise construction sites owing to improper planning of the positioning of the cranes. This results in costing the contractors a lot. For example, with a shorter counterweight in luffing cranes, there are negligible chances of rear collision of the luffing cranes if they are working in shorter radius. Further, again with the luffing jib, multiple cranes can work on highrise construction projects without the collision of the jib as well. The luffing feature is highly safe, if the crane is working in areas with high wind velocity. Generally in areas with high wind velocity, weather vaning is done to make the jib of the tower cranes free, so that they can freely rotate according to the direction of the wind. Without weather vaning, chances are that along with damage to the jib the crane may collapse altogether. Higher wind pressure is not unnatural in Delhi- NCR, Northern Indian region and sea shore areas. It can hit the other tower crane or structure during heavy wind even the anti collision devices are installed. But a luffing crane can luff up and can make 100% safe during heavy wind. Also the pressure acting on tower crane structure as lateral force can pass on to the building of the construction project causing damages to the building. All these negative attributes gets discounted in electric luffing tower cranes, as with the luffing feature, the jibs can be raised for the wind to free flow without causing damage to the crane structure or the jib during weather vaning.
What are the important application areas of luffing cranes?
The electric luffing tower cranes are suitable for both high rise constructions as well industrial constructions. Tower cranes with external climbing feature is not recommended if the construction is above 150 meters. In industrial projects undergoing maintenance or capacity additions, the cranes are suitable if there is shortage of space, for example between the two distillation units in refineries. The cranes are ideal if there is paucity of approach roads in between the sites, making it difficult for crawler cranes to move and operate. Similarly in Power plant boiler, ESP & TG erection.
Banking on the advantages, what are the number of luffing tower cranes you have sold so far?
We have sold good number of luffing cranes and recently delivered two 10 tons SYM cranes to Lodha Group where they are working for construction of 220 meters buildings. The cranes come with 43 meters freestanding mast height as compared to 33 meters of conventional tower cranes. Another 4 units (Two 8 tons and Two 10 tons class) have been delivered to Capacite Infra Projects Ltd. In industrial projects, There are 10 units of 75 tons class in Essar Power. Two units of 80 tons class have been delivered to Lanco. Couple of units have been supplied to KSK Power and Vedanta between 63-100 tons for erection of boilers at their power projects.
Could you please tell us about the competitive features of the SYM and Finehope electric luffing tower cranes and the class offered?
SYM cranes are manufactured using technology transferred from Potain France. SYM and Fine Hope cranes are fully equipped with electronic safety systems, speed control etc. Fine Hope tower cranes are available between the range of 32-200 tons, SYM luffing tower cranes are available between 8-32 tons.
What are the value-added support services being offered by Everest Engineering?
As value-added support services, we will continue to promote our new tower crane anti collision device developed through Hitech crane safety systems, China for which we have an exclusive tie-up in India.
The anti-collision device prevents collision with nearby tower cranes, structures, buildings, trees,…etc working at the close vicinity. The component is much critical as it provides total safety coverage to the tower cranes. This is in contrast to safe load indicators.
The collision device has been customized in accordance with Indian site requirements and considering factors like Govt. approved radio frequency, frequent power disruption stalling the operation of the tower cranes midway or wind conditions. Based on the factors, the anti-collision pack has a monitoring system installed on any computer at ground that monitors the working of the crane in clusters. This ground monitoring system can upload any changes like height increasing, zone protection…. Etc to any tower crane with out stopping it. On power disruption to a crane it passes information automatically to other cranes to stall operation towards the failed crane so as to avoid collision.
We have supplied 32 systems of the anti-collision device to tower cranes for L&T, Sobha Developers, and BE Billimoria…etc for their tower cranes.
Visit us at Excon at Outdoor Stall 73
NBM&CW November 2015
