PERSON PROFILE Ӏ JANUARY 2022
MEET MR. GRABIq
A decade into semi-retirement Lars Fredriksson, senior consultant at The Crosby Group, reflects on his career in the lifting industry.
“Being known as ‘Mr. GrabiQ’ is a burden that I can easily carry,” says Lars Fredriksson, senior consultant at lifting, rigging, and load securement hardware specialist The Crosby Group. “Actually, I’m quite pleased with the title.” Raised in a farming home in Sweden with
four brothers and hardworking parents, Fredriksson was exposed to agriculture, gardening, forestry, and saw-milling from an early age. He can tell you when he first placed his hands on rigging gear, too. From the age of ten he worked on the land and, two years later, was driving a heavy-timber tractor. By just 14 he was hauling and choking logs with chain slings, wire rope winches, and chain lashings. “This childhood experience became
very valuable as I coincidentally landed in the manufacture and development of these tools,” says Fredriksson.
STARTING OUT Initially Fredriksson went to work for Bergs Smide – a forging and machine shop and sub-supplier of hooks and couplers to Gunnebo Industries. “I was asked by the Berg brothers to develop our own brand of lifting gear products, and we became very successful with the SK coupling system in the Grade 8 range, which remains a popular and widely used product line today.” Gunnebo Industries acquired Bergs Smide
in 1977 and Fredriksson found himself in dual roles as export sales manager and product development manager. Jan Hedström, former president of Gunnebo Industries, must take some of the credit for giving Fredriksson free rein to innovate and design product. Challenged to develop something “unique and ahead of the competition” Fredriksson’s most well-known product, the GrabiQ, was conceptualised and eventually put to market in April 2000 at a trade show in Hanover, Germany.
MULTI-FUNCTIONING COMPONENTS The real story, however, starts eight years earlier when Fredriksson and Hedström sat down to dinner in Stockholm. “I had been away from lifting business for seven years,” says Fredriksson. “He had his latest brochures with him, and I noted that very little had happened since I left. I analysed the details of the possible weak points of chain slings and noted that every chain and component had one single function. “I realised that multi-functioning components would add a lot of customer value and increase efficiency.” Fredriksson reminded himself of a chain sling’s three fundamental functions: 1) Masterlink connecting the sling to a crane hook; 2) Connecting of chain leg to a masterlink; 3) Shortening of chain legs by shortening hooks. By changing his mindset from single function to multi-function, it was apparent that the number of components could be drastically reduced. “A four-leg top assembly is traditionally 15 pieces,” Fredriksson explains. “With GrabiQ we could reduce that to three pieces. A two-leg sling top went from seven pieces to one, and a one-leg sling went from four pieces to just one as well. It took three years and many prototypes before we could put the basic product design in place.” Still today, GrabiQ gives users the
guarantee of correctly sized components for the size of chain. “Assembly error is essentially eliminated,” adds Fredriksson. “Stockholding for distributors is minimised. There are fewer component types to handle. Time for sling assembly in the sling shop is reduced. There are fewer and quicker sling inspections. Components interlink wear for the top assembly is eliminated. Shortening function for chain slings is always
Lars Fredriksson, senior consultant at The Crosby Group, is happy to be known as ‘Mr. GrabiQ’
available for the rigger, thereby enabling correct balancing of the load to be lifted.” The GrabiQ range has been added to since the launch and continues to develop, both on the product and the application side. The Midgrab is an inline shortener that allows the rigger to adjust the sling anywhere on the chain, not only at the top assembly, reducing the time needed to adjust a sling. The use of GrabiQ in new ways continues to develop as well. One example is its use in rescue operations to make it easier and quicker to remove patients from cars that have been involved in an accident.
FUTURE THINKING Fredriksson’s career, GrabiQ aside, is also notable because of 25 patents and design registrations. “I particularly enjoy working on products, marketing, and business development,” he says. “I’m a problem- solver. The key is to always understand your client. And that means that there will certainly be more innovations in future because end users’ needs are always evolving, and gravity will always exist. There will be more designs, and even lighter and stronger slings.” Fredriksson might be an extreme
example, few people will leave such a legacy, but his generation are retiring from our industry and the generation behind them are catching up fast. As a result, the lifting and rigging industry, like many others, is often in need of fresh, young talent and engineers. “Whenever an opportunity arises,” says
Fredriksson, “I always recommend young engineers to go into traditional heavy industry fields and inject new knowledge and methods. I often use the example of the automation and tech involved in a modern crane, which these days is becoming more and more like a robot. It’s a myth that this sector, while traditional, isn’t state-of-the-art too.”
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