Moorabbin Mobile Cranes of Melbourne, Australia, recently completed the unusual job of moving an entire brewery production line, using two Terex AT 20-3 cranes, at Matilda Bay Brewery.
The job involved performing several challenging lifts in an extremely confined working area. Crane operators and riggers needed to remove and load the brewery’s entire production line from its old building onto trailers. The final and most challenging lift was moving the brewery’s 23ft (7m), 6-ton oven.
“Anytime you’re performing a lift and carry operation inside of a building, precise movements are required,” said Moorabbin Mobile Cranes’s crane crew operator, Mark Curtis. “Our crew has a lot of experience in this type of environment and prefer to use our Terex AT 20-3 pick and carry cranes because of their ability to maneuver in tight spaces with limited overhead space.”
Two cranes, two crane operators and two riggers started the Matilda Bay Brewery job by lifting and placing smaller machinery onto the trailers for transporting. Once the bulk of the production line was removed, Moorabbin Mobile Cranes’s crew could finally tackle the task of lifting and walking the oven through a low overhead door onto an awaiting truck and trailer.
To begin, the Terex pick-and-carry cranes were positioned on each side of the long oven. After each side was rigged, each crane operator had to carefully lift at the same time to keep the oven level. With the assistance of crane riggers paying attention to potential overhead obstacles and tight corners, the oven was then slowly walked out of the building and placed on the trailer.
“We had to maintain a very low lift height throughout the operation and be able to exit the building with the oven positioned precisely over the top of the trailer,” added Curtis. “We didn’t have much room to work with. A job like this takes an experienced team and the right equipment. We have both.”
Once the brewery job was complete, Moorabbin Mobile Cranes had its Terex AT 20-3 cranes onto the next job. In fact, the company keeps these two workhorses busy on a daily basis around Melbourne, Dandenong and the Mornington Peninsula. On many jobs, the two cranes work in tandem and perform dual lifts on a regular basis.
“Since we started using Terex pick-and-carry cranes back in the 1990s, dual lifts have become more of a specialty of ours,” said Curtis. “We have a lot of clients that need to lift and place long heavy machinery inside of buildings. And, having the crane pair allows us to do that efficiently and economically.”
Curtis says that the Terex AT 20-3 crane’s ability to maintain regular traffic travels of up to 85km/h, its compact size and quick setup helps his crew get on and off jobs faster. It’s a combination that allows Moorabbin Mobile Cranes to get more work done in a week and save its customers money.
November 4, 2016
