From OMi’s new one bay manufacturing facility near Dallas Texas, OMi and GH will supply hoists, cranes and crane components through the OMi dealer network across the USA.
Using the same principles as car manufacturing, the crane manufacturing at the OMi facility is a straight line assembly, with receiving at one end of the building, to shipping complete overhead cranes out of the other end of this 213m-long facility.
Storage, machining, electrical and component cells are adjacent to the assembly area. This mirrors the manufacturing processes of GH in its Spanish standard crane manufacturing facilities.
OMi has implemented several manufacturing processes which it claims will not only improve quality, but at the same time decrease manufacturing and assembly time.
After the girders are taken off the box girder jig, they are joined with a special automatic welder. A typical 21m (70ft) box girder can be welded by this machine in less than an hour. The box girder is then sent through a shot blasting machine to prepare the surface for painting.
To assemble the crane girder to the end truck, one end truck is clamped in place and the other is set on a moveable fixture which is moved down the jig track to the exact span of the crane. With the end trucks aligned, the girder is lowered onto the connecting pads and welded. This is to guarantee alignment of the crane wheels from one end of the crane to the other.
The crane moves down the assembly process to the next stage, where the final assembly is completed by installating the GH hoist and all the crane’s electrical controls.
Once the crane has been assembled and tested it is moved to a storage area, where it is prepared for shipping. This allows other cranes to flow through the same production procedures. The cranes in the shipping area are then loaded onto trucks and shipped to customers.
