The inaugural Overhead Crane and Hoist Innovation Conference, rganised by Hoist magazine, took place in early October. Daniel Searle reports

With almost all trade shows and conferences in our industry postponed for 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Hoist magazine worked with industry members to create a full conference agenda and virtual event, which took place on October 8th. It’s safe to say it was a success, with several hundred registrants logging in to network with sponsors and other delegates, and to watch the ten presentations that took place throughout the day. Each presentation was followed by a live question-and-answer session, allowing delegates to get further information from each speaker about the technologies on show.

The theme for the conference was innovation: the aim was to not only update lifting industry members with details of the very latest technologies available from manufacturers, but also to showcase the best and most cutting-edge equipment to end-users.

There was a large number of registrants from various well-known companies, keen to learn about how today’s—and tomorrow’s—lifting equipment can enhance the productivity and safety of their operations. Combined with a great line-up of speakers, the conference pushed the very best of our industry to the forefront to a swathe of key end-users.

INNOVATION ON SHOW

The conference kicked off with a presentation from Markus Otto, process cranes sales director at Demag, looking at both crane automation and a remote operating station system for cranes. The company has installed automated storage facilities with process cranes at manufacturers of paper rolls and metal coils, using a warehouse management system (WMS) to manage the materials being stored—including ensuring the products are stored correctly, and logging the position and type of each roll.

That allows the system to increase productivity dramatically, with the aim being high performance from the cranes and high-density storage in the warehouse. Yard management is also optimised: an example given from a case study showed average truck dwell time being reduced from 45 minutes to 17 minutes.

The inaugural Overhead Crane and Hoist Innovation Conference, rganised by Hoist magazine