Industrial Automation Magazine India

There has been an increased adoption of automation in the crane industry

Published on : Wednesday 08-05-2024

AR Madhusudan, President, Drive Products, ABB India.

What are some of the latest advancements in drives and PLC technology that have significantly im-proved safety & efficiency for material handling via precise crane control?

The crane industry continues to evolve with the rising demand for infrastructure development, industrial growth, urbanisation, and more. However, one of the consistent and crucial requirements for any crane is precise control. Today’s modern variable speed drives (VSDs) and programmable logic controllers (PLCs) have built-in crane control functionalities, which significantly enhance crane performance by optimising the motor speed, torque, and braking. This not only ensures smooth hoisting and long or cross-travel, reducing potential stress on mechanical components, but also improves efficiency, reliability and safety during material handling. Traditionally, crane control and anti-sway functionalities have been used with several separate external elements, such as automation controllers. With drives, these technologies are integrated, reducing complexity and making automation possible.

As with how technology has improved most industries, there has been much advancement in the crane industry as well. Today, there are several modern features available like brake match – catching the load on the fly, if there is a problem with a mechanical brake; smooth lifting – when starting with loose ropes, to avoid shock load when the rope tightens up; master/follower – a motor working together in the same gearbox; and synchro control – electrical shaft, to synchronise multiple hooks and more. Crane manufacturers and end users today can apply a variety of new control strategies based on drives and PLCs with powerful built-in crane control applications.

Please provide an overview of ABB's latest offerings for the crane industry and what industries & types of cranes do they cater to?

ABB has a wide and diverse range of offerings for cranes and a strong presence in India. From motors and drives to advanced PLCs, ABB also offers complete package solutions, which include combinations of latest AC drives, PLCs, servo drives and motion, providing an optimal solution overall. Crane applications built into the drives provide users with market-ready control solutions.

Our all-compatible global crane drives portfolio includes the ACS380 and ACS880 drives, which equip operators to move various types of cranes efficiently and safely with its built-in crane control features and a range of safety functions. The ACS380 drive has standard built-in crane control features for hoist for standard cranes, cross travel and long travel for all cranes, working precisely both in closed loop and open loop, while the ACS880 comes with advanced crane control program, which supports all types of cranes. The AC500-S safety PLC allows precise control of cranes safely from remote locations and locally, and provides key safety data, equipping operators with important insights.

ABB drives and PLCs provide precise control across a large range of crane types and for all movements, catering to overhead cranes, process cranes, rubber tyre gantry cranes, marine and offshore deck cranes, stacker cranes, hoists and tower cranes. They can be used in several industries, including construction and infrastructure, mining, ports, steel, paper, cement, sugar, and more.

How has ABB addressed the critical demands for precision and effective crane control, ensuring accuracy and reliability in their solutions?

Material handling applications can be very demanding in nature, and it requires solutions that can adapt to different situations quickly. To meet the critical demands for precision and effective crane control, ABB offers solutions that are scalable, flexible, and most importantly, can be customised to match the needs of the customers. While integrating multiple technologies into a single drive enables automation, we also enable customers to easily program the cranes using ABB’s AC500 PLC and Human Machine Interface (HMI), making automation more accessible and tuned to the unique needs of our customers.

Please provide insights into the industry's leading best practices that have driven advancements, as well as overcoming challenges stemming from these progressions.

As demand continues to evolve in the crane industry, businesses are focusing on improving productivity and efficiency while reducing downtime. Simultaneously, one of the top priorities in the crane industry is ensuring the safety of personnel, materials, and facilities. To achieve this, the industry is increasingly adopting automation technologies and benefitting from data-driven insights and training the workforce to leverage these insights.

With the adoption of Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things, more and more devices are connected with each other. While this equips operators with data-driven insights, the security of industrial automation and control systems is increasingly critical. It is important that businesses protect their data and avoid potential risks.

What are the key trends within the crane industries, what opportunities do you foresee?

Over the years, much technological advancement continues to reshape the crane industry. At one point, fully automated cranes, remotely monitored and controlled by the operator from a safe and comfortable environment, existed only in theory but today, it is the reality.

In line with this, there has been an increased adoption of automation in the crane industry. Today, fully automated cranes can increase throughput, reduce costs, provide greater energy efficiency, and make facilities safer. With PLCs, operators are well-informed as they can monitor activity and receive key data, eliminating the need for them to operate each crane by using a joystick. Rising demand for more supervised systems to reduce the burden of crane operators has also resulted in the adoption of integrated controls. These automated controlling systems can balance weight shift and provide better visibility for operators to ensure safety and efficiency.

Historically, operators have focused on ensuring that their cranes are performing at optimal levels at all times. This has often come at the cost of inefficient use of energy. However, as the country has set ambitious net-zero targets, there has been a push for industries to improve costs as well as energy efficiency.

While the industry has implemented some automation features, there is still a huge opportunity to leverage latest technologies to automate cranes fully. In India, rising focus on Industry 4.0, digitalisation and automation, and higher demand for efficiency and safety, are expected to drive the growth of automation technologies and energy-saving technologies, like regenerative drives that can feed the braking power back to the network.

In your experience, how does the automation of cranes impact labor efficiency, safety and overall operational costs for industries?

In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been acceleration in the adoption of cutting-edge technologies. From contactless operations or real-time remote operations to data-driven insights, automation technologies are playing a key role in increasing efficiency and safety and lowering operational costs. For example, in the crane industry, with automation, operators can have a better view of the key parameters of crane operations, thereby equipping them to make well-informed decisions. Automation can also help operators execute repetitive tasks more precisely and monitor and control cranes from a safe and comfortable environment.

Using automation technologies like drives and PLCs also reduce wear and tear on cranes resulting in lower maintenance and energy costs. With cutting-edge drive technology, preventative maintenance of cranes can be planned to avoid any breakdowns, thereby increasing the lifecycle of the crane and reducing related operational costs.

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