Lifting equipment and ser- vice company Konecranes Southern Africa (SA) is manufacturing nine overhead cranes, with an estimated value of R8-million, for the steel industry and continues its inspec- tion and service contracts for local and multinational steel manufacturers and distributors, states Konecranes service, sales and marketing director John MacDonald.

Konecranes SA expects to complete the cranes by April or May, MacDonald says, adding that orders for crane equipment in the steel industry have increased by about R11-million since last year.

“The inspection, service and load-testing contract bases for all makes of crane and hoisting equipment increased by 142% in 2013 and by 9.6% in January alone,” he says.

He notes that the service business increased by 67% last year, owing to increased awareness through advertising, the Konecranes service documentation manual and the company’s quality and technical innovation.

About 15% of Konecranes SA business is generated from the steel industry, MacDonald notes, adding that key factors for the steel industry are production capacity and crane reliability and availability.

“The cranes have to be designed and manufactured to the correct technical specification, as they mostly work 24/7, which means the steel industry demands a high level of preventive maintenance, service and communication.

“The most popular Konecranes products in the steel industry are the overhead travelling cranes, but the inspection, service and repair of all makes of cranes and hoists, are also popular, as Konecranes has developed a service procedure and service manual.

“This manual, which was launched last year November, has proven popular with steel stockholders, as it has been proved to reduce the operating costs of cranes, thereby increasing the production reliability and production capacity, and the safety and efficiency of operations,” he explains.

Konecranes’ crane and hoisting equipment solutions were developed to meet the needs of the steel industry, such as raw materials handling, steelmaking, and rolling and refining pro- cesses, as well as the supply of cranes for ladle, charging, billet, slab, coil, plate and bar handling.

The Konecranes scrapyard cranes are often used in the steel industry, as they can be equipped with lifting magnets and hydraulic grabs to move scrap steel, MacDonald says. To maintain high levels of productivity, the travelling speed of the scrapyard crane can reach 140 m a minute and lifting capacity can be up to 40 t with a loading device.

Charging cranes are designed to operate in high ambient temperatures and include a higher lifting capacity for infrequent maintenance tasks, such as lifting the furnace shell, while billet and slab cranes feed the rolling mills of steel plants, often incorporating a rotating trolley or a rotating loading device to position the product correctly in relation to the conveyor, says MacDonald.

Slab and billet handling cranes can handle radiant heat from hot steel products, while the billet crane can be equipped with lifting magnets or with a billet tong if the billets are extremely hot, adds MacDonald, and notes that slab cranes can be equipped with a mechanical or hydraulic tong for single or multislab handling.

New Konecranes products used in the steel industry include the advanced survey technique, the Rail Q Runway Survey, which uses a remote robot trolley along the runway or gantry rail of the crane and generates a detailed report on the levelness, elevation, span and square of the gantry rail. Other products include the Rope Q, which checks the inside and outside of the rope or cable and the Controlpro True connect remote monitoring, which enables crane operators to check the performance of the crane online.

“Konecranes has facilities in 52 countries, with 636 service branches. While Johannesburg is the Konecranes regional head office for sub-Saharan Africa and covers 47 countries, we have a focused drive into this region, with technicians and development managers travelling weekly into the region,” says MacDonald.