E-Crane — big in Belgium and abroad
E-Crane Worldwide/Indusign is a modern, state-of-the-art engineering and heavy equipment construction company, based in Adegem, Belgium. E-Crane Worldwide provides design services as well as complete machine production, installation, support and training with on-going service for the heavy equipment industry. The E-Crane series offers models with up to 49 tonnes duty cycle capacity due to their movable counterweight and fixed parallelogram linkage as well as up to 150ft/50m of horizontal and up to 100ft/30m reach below grade. Its modular design allows each E-Crane to be tailor-made to the client’s specific requirements. Supported by a world-wide dealer and service network, E-Crane Worldwide is able to offer its customers on-going assistance worldwide.
Electronic Machine Management
E-Crane recently introduced its Electronic Machine Management-system (EMM); this will now be included as standard in all its B-series E-Cranes. This mobile CAN-bus technology enables the E-Crane engineers to trouble shoot and solve problems from behind their computer. Check out the jobstory below:
Antwerp, 11th of April 2007. 06.00 hrs.:
E-Crane operator Stan begins unloading a coaster with rapesead for the Cargill facility of Schelde-Natie in the port of Antwerp. Expected weather conditions during the day: sunny, 20°. At 09.00 hrs. a warning occurs on the screen inside the cab informing Stan that the oil temperature inside the tank is too low… -15°C! Coolers have been shut down and tankheaters are activated. Operator Stan stops the crane and checks the oil temperature inside the power module where he finds that oil is not cold, on the contrary, the oil is quite warm/hot as he cannot hold his hand on the tank. Stan decides to call the E-Crane service centre in Adegem, Belgium. Chief engineer Geert Watteeuw answers his call. After a brief explanation of what happened Geert decides to establish a direct communication with the EMM on the crane using a wireless GPRS link. From behind his computer in Adegem Geert quickly sees that the signal coming from the temperature sensor inside the tank is not within the normal operating range. From behind his desk, Geert bypasses the sensor and he activates the coolers to allow Stan to continue with the offloading. 9.30 hrs.: Geert informs Stan about the actions taken after which the offloading of the coaster is resumed. 18.30 hrs.: Ship is empty and leaves the dock. Just another day in the world of E-Crane. In only half an hour time, the problem was analyzed and solved.
E-Crane Customers = Loyal Customers
Due to excellent customer relations, E-Crane frequently receives repeat orders. On 4 July, the third E-Crane for Multiserv’s scrap catering project at the Carinox steelmill in Charleroi, Belgium, was successfully and safely installed, commissioned and put into service. Multiserv is a division of Harsco Corporation, and is the world’s single largest provider of outsourced, on-site mill services to the global steel and nonferrous metals industries. Carinox is one of the four European production sites of Ugine & ALZ, the European subsidiary of Arcelor’s Stainless Steel Business Unit. Thanks to the successful installation of the third E-Crane in Charleroi, the Carinox steel mill is now approaching its design capacity of handling one million tons of stainless steel per year. At the Acindar steel mill in Villa Constitucion,Argentine, the installation of two new E-Cranes will allow MultiServ, the service provider for the scrap handling at Acindar, to keep scrap moving. Electric arc furnace (EAF) steel mills like Acindar rely on a steady stream of baskets filled with scrap metal to be ready as feedstock every hour of every day that the mill is up and running. For the US market, the sixth E-Crane in a series of seven, tailor-made for AEP’s Kanawha River plant in West-Virginia has just left the Adegem workshop. American Electric Power is one of the largest electric utilities in the United States. After the factory acceptance and testing (FAT, tests and tuning) in E-Cranes workshop by AEP officials end of September 2007, the 1500B series E-Crane was disassembled into major components/packages for shipment to its final destination in Glasgow, Kanawha County, where the E-Crane will off-load coal for the coal-fired steam units that generate and transmit electrical power to communities in West-Virginia and Virginia.
Floating Bulk Off-loading Stations
E-Crane will deliver a mid-stream transfer station for Seaboard Corporation, for their Midema Ship Unloading Project on the River Congo, near the harbour of Matadi.
Midema, short for Minoterie de Matadi, controls about 70% of the flour market in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As this issue goes to pres, the barge Mama Mobokoli is being refurbished by E-Crane Worldwide in the harbour of Zeebrugge, Belgium. There, the 1500B series E-Crane, custom built for handling wheat for Midema, will be mounted by E-Crane engineers onto the barge, before it will be towed across the ocean to its new destination.
E-Crane International USA has been rewarded an order for a 2000 series, model 18264 E-Crane for one of Alabama Electric Cooperative’s power plants. The generating station, known as Charles R. Lowman Power Plant, is on the Tombigbee River near Leroy, Alabama. The E-Crane will be mounted on a 175ft by 50ft deck barge, together with a receiving hopper and a feeder. The goal is to receive coal and limestone from barges and transport the material via a conveyor to the plant’s shoreside material handling system.The conveyor will be mounted on a 40ft by 26ft support barge tied to the crane barge. The new material handling system is scheduled to be operational during the first quarter of 2008.
Source: Dry Cargo International (November 2007)
