AUTOMATION
completely safe,” says Premium Industrial Group. “This means that no one will be able to circulate in the area of the automated crane while it is in operation. In fact, when someone enters the area, the entire system stops and doesn’t restart until the person has left.” Demag echo the point: “An automated process typically begins with both a visual and audible warning letting the operator and others know the process has begun. Areas with automation are always protected from entry by personnel with fences, gates, or sensors to prevent entry or to stop the process if anyone enters. If loads must be transported above personnel, a screen can be installed under the crane or monorail for full protection of those under the path. The automation controls can be tied into other plant equipment to ensure that an automated process is always safely completed.”
Taking full advantage
Automation could help increase efficiency on manufacturing and production lines.
At this point we should mention the elephant in the room. It is rather a large elephant – AI. On the face of it crane operations would seem an ideal application for AI. It could work out for itself the most efficient routes, speeds, order of tasks and the rest, carry them out, and integrate the whole of that into the workings of the entire plant. The benefits and the savings would seem immense. In practice, it hasn’t yet happened – and there appears at present little prosect of it happening soon. The reason is the one we have been
discussing: safety. Overhead lifting is inherently dangerous. The unique feature of AI is that human beings do not understand its decision-making: the whole point of AI is that it makes its decisions without referring to us. It works out its own rationales; and does so quite independently from the primitive carbon-based life-forms that have created it. And it does not bother to explain them. We do not, and we cannot, know how it will behave in any given station, let alone in an emergency. Consequently there is, in this area at least if not elsewhere, little appetite for entrusting the well-being, perhaps even the lives, of workers and passers-by to the unknowable workings of a silicon chip. Salter of Street Crane Express puts it succinctly: “As far as I know AI is not yet part of lifting automation. It would be difficult to confirm its safety rating.” Automation costs money. The more complete the
automation, the more sensors and control systems are required. On a simple hoist, smart features come with very little up-front costs; no longer expensive add-ons they are now supplied almost by default, and economies of scale in production and the general reduction in costs of digital equipment have made them all but standard. Full automation, however, costs more. As Demag point out, additional mechanical components are needed and a human operator, so these systems can cost significantly more than semi-automated systems. By no means do all of the return on investment come from reduction in labour
34 | March 2026 |
www.hoistmagazine.com
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