In buying P&H, Chartwell also acquires a UK manufacturing foothold in P&H subsidiary Morris’s brand new hoist plant, which was opened last year and has since been very busy.
One recent job involved teaming up with crane drive system supplier, Flender Power Transmission. The UK-based company supplied its 18.5kW Motox helical bevel-geared motors for the long travel and hoist drives for six Morris stacker cranes supplied to Panasonic’s new southern distribution Centre in Northampton. Five of the cranes have been designed to operate to the full 22.5M height of the building within the 23,000-pallet high-bay area, while the sixth replenishes low-bay mezzanine floors.
The six hoist drives were rated at 16,000Nm and supplied with forced vent fans, encoders for closed loop control and two output shafts for the fully-automated warehouse. The six long-travel drives were specified with torque capacities of 2700Nm with hollow-shaft gearboxes located by shrink disk. They were also fitted with encoders and forced vent fans to cool the drives at low speeds.
A close working relationship with another partner, Siemens, was demonstrated at an emergency turnaround job for Frigoscandia’s recently-completed cold store and distribution centre in Grimsby.
This fully-automated facility depends on six Morris overhead cranes, which were put out of action by a power surge which destroyed the master drive rectifiers, filters and fuses that were originally supplied to Morris Mechanical Handling’s Automated Division by Siemens.
Just twenty-four hours after the outage, the Frigoscandia plant was up and running again. As soon as Morris engineers had identified the components needed, Siemens distribution centre in Hinckley, UK, located replacements in Germany and Austria, chartered a special flight to bring them to Leeds/Bradford airport and then sent them by courier to Grimsby. Morris engineers were already waiting on-site to install, test and commission the system.
Another fast turn-around job completed by Morris involved the commissioning and readying for work of a 16t 500 series double-hoist overhead crane just five days after delivery. The crane was ordered by Sweden’s Ovako, a subsidiary of SKF. Like all Morris overhead cranes, the unit was load tested in the company’s Loughborough factory to ensure fast and trouble-free on-site assembly and reconnection. The crane, which is equipped with frequency-inverter control on long- and cross-travel functions, has been installed in one of the most demanding areas on the site and has to operate in high ambient temperatures. This necessitates an air-conditioned housing for the crane’s electric panels.
The 500 series crane is also specified with radio control equipment which allows operatives to handle steel products while staying clear of hazardous areas. With a maximum lift height of 12m, a span of 23.3m and a rotating crab unit, the crane will handle high-grade steel tube and bar stock.
More recent contract awards include Penang Port North Butterworth Container Terminal’s order, placed with Morris Asia Pacific Cranes in December, for six 8-wheel RTGs.
Also in Asia, Bill Oliver has been appointed regional director, distributor products of the (newly ISO 9001 accredited) Singapore-based subsidiary Morris Blooma. He moves from the UK where he was general manager of the industrial crane division in the Loughborough factory.
