It may have closed its Oak Creek facility but Morris Material Handling Inc – that’s the American Morris, formerly known as P&H – wants the world to know that there is plenty of good news to be told about the company. Indeed, with ownership of the company an open question, it is more important than ever for Morris Inc to show its best face. It is safely out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as reported in hoist 19, but the various financial institutions that now own 90% of the company cannot be regarded as enthusiastic long-term owners.

Among the projects recently completed by Morris Inc in the USA is the modernisation and installation of three 11 ton capacity P&H refuse handling cranes at Wheelabrator Pinellas County’s redesigned waste-to-energy plant in Pinellas County, Florida.

Wheelabrator approached Morris after all three cranes had hoist failures. Morris technicians realised the problem was that Wheelabrator had fitted larger refuse grapples to meet expanded production schedules, but causing each crane to be overloaded by several tons per lift.

The cranes were upgraded with new components, including 15 ton double drum trolleys, bridge span festoon systems, runway festoon systems, control components, operator armchair control consoles, and 2 ton maintenance hoists.

Another upgrade was carried out for Norbord Industries in Guntown, Massachussets by adding P&H Smartorque 2000 hoist and trolley controls on a portal crane. The equipment was delivered within three weeks of the order being placed, in time to be installed during the mill’s planned one week shutdown.

Features of Morris’s Smartorque 2000 variable frequency drives include an open loop hoist control system which eliminates the requirement of a high maintenance encoder, says Morris. The technology simplifies hoist circuitry and eliminates a failure point without loss of performance or safety. Smartorque 2000 also has a responsive plugging feature that emulates prior generation control performance preferred by operators.

Morris has also recently shipped three large steel mill cranes to Nucor Steel’s mill in Crawfordsville, Indiana. The shipment included one 225 ton ladle crane, one 100 ton rolling mill crane, and one 60 ton shipping bay crane. When it is built, the steel mill will use a newly licensed technology that reduces the cost of producing thin strip cast steel from high-residual scrap.

“These cranes are key pieces of equipment,” says Dan Dickey, construction manager at the Nucor Crawfordsville plant. “We use them every day during construction of the plant. Once the plant is operating, we’ll use them for handling liquid steel, for maintenance, and for moving finished steel.”

Nucor is one of the largest steelmakers in the USA and over the years has bought nearly 200 P&H heavy duty cranes for its 10 plants.

In March Morris installed a bridge crane in a new intermodal transfer facility at the Port of Greenville in the Mississippi Delta. The cranes is a 60 ton, 80ft span, long lift, top running P&H bucket crane with double trolleys. A cover over the bridge crane protects river barges from rain while loading perishable cargo such as grains and feed.

Morris recently shipped two magnet cranes to East Jordan Iron Works’ new Oklahoma foundry under a contract won despite not being the lowqest bidder. Sales engineer John Suprenant says: “This customer listened carefully to what we had to say, and came away convinced that P&H quality and experience were worth the extra cost.” The shipment includes two 8 ton magnet cranes and one 20 ton hot metal crane.

In Guanajuato, Mexico, Morris installed a 250t P&H crane for transformer manufacturer VA Tech Ferranti-Packard de Mexico. The 83ft (25m) span crane was erected in Ferranti’s assembly area. Alejandro Cervantes, Ferranti’s production manager, said: “This crane has allowed us to maximise our productivity by reducing downtime in the material handling of the plant.”

Morris is also a Tier One (or preferred) supplier to the Ford Motor Company. Over the many years that both companies have been in business, Ford has purchased more than 300 P&H cranes for its factories throughout North America. Morris claims that 70% of cranes in Ford’s stamping plants in North America are P&H brand.

Another boost to morale was being among 13 companies named Outstanding Supplier of the Year by West Valley Nuclear Services Company in New York State for its 2001 financial year. West Valley brought in Morris to diagnose and repair a failed hoist gearcase. Morris turned the job around in less than two weeks, whereas the turnaround time for such work is typically 12 weeks or longer, according to Morris. West Valley did business with 475 suppliers in 2001, of which 31 were nominated for this award.

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gearcase.jpg – Morris won an Outstanding Supplier of the Year award from West Valley Nuclear Services Company for diagnosing and repairing a failed hoist gearcase

ladel.jpg – Morris Material Handling has shipped three large steel mill cranes, including this 225-ton ladle crane to Nucor Steel’s Crawfordsville, Indiana steel mill

amergen.doc (embedded) – A 210 ton capacity P&H crane undergoes initial load testing after being installed at AmerGen’s Clinton, Illinois nuclear power station. The crane is lifting 262.5 tons (125% of rated capacity) using a Water Weights test load system.

norbord.doc: (embedded) – This P&H portal crane at Norbord Industries’ Guntown, MS mill feeds tree length logs to the infeed deck. The bark is stripped and then the wood is shredded into chips and pressed into oriented strand board that is used for housing construction. The crane is rated to lift a 40 ton load. It has a span of 145ft between the gantry legs and 65ft cantilever extensions on both ends.