THE PROJECT
One challenge was to design a monorail loop.
clearly, this was a very fast-track project,” says McGuff. “It was being done in a fully operational foundry, and so we always had to work around the schedule of when the foundry was running.” While work was done post-Covid, it was still in a time when travel was limited and there were still many safety controls in place.
“All of that was going on at the same time with the
complexities that Ryan pointed out of 'how do you build something within a fairly old structure that must not interfere with what's going on in the workplace',” says McGuff. “So, compliments to Ryan's team because they scheduled their work off hours and at weekends. They were there, diligently working through during the night. We'd come in and work around what they had built the previous night. “At one point, we also realised… the challenges of the height in a certain area, where we had this gutter system that we thought we would be able to clear – but we ended up having to take this whole section of the roof off. So I was constantly throwing challenges at Ryan and his team.” Marks describes how his team had to quickly mobilise and create an entire super-structure: “So in the lower half of the building, we had to create an entire free-standing structure that we could attach the monorail to – while trying to take into consideration the height concerns. At one point, Stephen [McGuff] actually had to put a pit in the floor because we were simply out of room. So far, it seems to have worked very nicely.” The equipment that was used in the overall
project was a Uesco Cranes double girder cab running magnet crane with an IMS 10-ton hoist. The complete magnet controls came from Walker Magnetics, with the monorail system supplied by TC/ American. Meanwhile, two Yale Cable King hot metal hoists were used for hoisting applications. “We also basically had to come up with a collision avoidance system, so we came up with a pretty
complicated system that has different signals on it and strobe lights,” says Marks. “Because part of this monorail goes up like a ramp, almost like a walk area, you can't spread out the monorail enough to where things can just pass. You have to know when one is coming and one is going and make it stop without the operator having to do it because we have two hoists on the system that are supposed to be continuous loop, essentially.”
Another challenge was dealing with issues outside Uesco Cranes' control. “We're the crane manufacturer and since we
purchase the hoist, we are able to control those elements of the project,” says Marks. “We were controlling when we were manufacturing the crane –
we know our engineering capabilities, etc. “It was the things that we couldn't control that
were probably the most frustrating – so the things that we were purchasing from TC American. Overall, they did a great job, but they were also having supply issues like everybody else. The Cable Kings – again, delivery issues. Everybody was going through this at that time. Overall, they delivered a very good product. [But] that part of the project – the building of the crane – ran fairly smoothly. “When it came to the monorail, because we
were relying on other suppliers, we were on their timeframe, rather than ours. When we found these things that needed to be manipulated and changed, we had to work with other people to get
Yale hoists are employed in the facility.
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