The system consists of 1,240 ft. of ACCO Louden monorail Supertrack, integrated with 11 switches and four custom shuttle crane stations,18 ft. high and covers 24,000 sq. ft. within a 63,000 sq. ft. expansion bay that replaces a previous system and expands the manufacturing operation from two production lines to four.
The system is designed so that all hoist trolleys can be fully loaded and run bumper-to-bumper. The trolleys have extended bumpers that protect the loads from hitting.
“The system structure was designed and built into the building structure, which took a lot of coordination. Even with some last-minute changes, everything turned out great when it came to everything fitting up between the system and the building. This was probably one of the most challenging parts of the project in the planning stages but turned out to be one of the smoothest elements when it came to construction and installation.?A two-person crew put this up in just a couple of weeks,” said Kurt Hinrichsen, facilities project manager, Musco Lighting.
“We have many shapes and sizes of product and this system allows us to be flexible. Trolleys and hooks work great for all our different sizes of products that run on the line.? Switches help us take the trolley with the product on it and take it off the main line to do our assembly while other product can continue to pass through.”
AFE Crane is a distributor of ACCO Material Handling Solutions, a manufacturer of material handling products (part of The Crosby Group).
The company wanted to increase production and needed to create another monorail system similar to the one AFE Crane installed in the 1990s.
AFE Crane designed the monorail, built the shuttle cranes and the hoists. ACCO provided all the patented track components including monorail, curves, switches, hangers and trolleys. Manufacturing and installation spanned a four-month period.
“The shuttle cranes move the hoist trolley and the rail a few feet perpendicular to the monorail so that the hoist trolley is off the main monorail path and the other hoist trolleys can pass on the primary monorail path.?The hoist trolley that is shuttled to the side can later be shuttled back onto the main monorail path. Usually, a crane hook has just one hook palm for a load to rest on; a sister hook has two hook palms directly across from each other,” added Rich McInnis, applications engineer, AFE Crane.
