CeMAT to feature cranes and lifting gear area
Attendees will be able to see cranes and lifting equipment in a dedicated area of the upcoming CeMAT exhibition (31 May – 3 June, Hannover, Germany).
The latest products will be showcased in the Cranes & Lifting Equipment Pavilion in Hall 27.
“We’ve provided an excellent platform here for the industry to present their achievements in a dynamic environment. Manufacturers of cranes and lifting equipment will be demonstrating their own strengths, and showing visitors how their products can be integrated into tomorrow’s fully networked and automated logistics chains,” says Wolfgang Pech, Senior Vice-President at Deutsche Messe.
“As in many other sectors, the trend in the crane industry is very much towards intelligent systems and everything we mean by the term Industry 4.0,” explains Thomas Kraus, Support Centre Director for Stahl CraneSystems GmbH in Künzelsau (Baden-Württemberg). “The integration of individual process operations into a single operating package is a development that is being embraced by more and more crane manufacturers.”
Controlling crane systems via a tablet or other smart gadgets, collecting and analysing process data – these things, he predicts, will be standard practice in the industry before long.
This view is also shared by Wilfried Neuhaus-Galladé, managing member of the VDMA’s Association for Materials Handling and Intralogistics, as well as managing director of the Witten-based supplier of lifting equipment J.D.Neuhaus.
“To get the full benefit of the new technology, our businesses will have to master many challenges”, says Neuhaus-Galladé. “For many companies, the main hurdles are high investment costs and a not very clear idea of the benefits that will result.”
IT security concerns are still deterring many decision-makers, as is the absence of definitive technical standards. But he insists that the crane industry must, and will, meet this challenge. Beyond that, he is sure that customer-specific solutions will figure more prominently in the future – both in terms of the engineering and the complexity of the systems. And that means more extensive documentation as well. The more complex the system, the more important the quality of the after-sales service provided by the manufacturer in order to ensure trouble-free production under 24/7 operating conditions.
