Digital Automation is the key technology that is transforming industrial society. Big Data, Industry 4.0, the Internet of Things – these are all part of it, and as agents of change are as profound as the steam engine was to the First Industrial Revolution. The advent of mass production, and then of electrical power, are said to have been the second and third revolutions; the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the digital one, is now squarely and fully upon us. We are in the middle of it – not at the start – and it is affecting the hoist industry as much as any other.

So, are all manufacturers in the sector embracing it, or are they planning to? And what of their customers? Are they demanding the latest in digital automation from their overhead lifting, to render their own production plants part of the revolution?

And, of course, it may be that artificial intelligence, AI, will complete that revolution and take it to places that as yet we cannot foresee. Here we stand on the brink of the truly unknown.

We asked three different manufacturers, from different parts of the sector, for their views. Ace World Companies supplies the industry with overhead cranes, electric wire rope hoists, and end trucks both standard and custom, developed using the most sophisticated technologies available today. Its products range from 5.0 to 500 tons capacity. Aaron Kureck, the company’s VP Tronics, answered our questions. Caldwell, of course, is a major specialists in below-the-hook attachments and vacuum lifters, and Dan Mongan, its senior sales engineer, answered on behalf of the company. Conductix- Wampfler, a leading supplier of intelligent energy supply and data management systems for moving machinery, is represented by Brian Cook, the company’s senior product manager. Here are the answers they gave to our questions…

Overhead Crane and Hoist [OCH]: How much has digital automation penetrated your industry? Is it limited to higher-capacity hoists or is it throughout all overhead lifting in manufacturing processes?

Aaron Kureck (Ace World Companies): It’s penetrated our market quite a bit, actually. There is definitely a trend for more feature-rich ‘smart’ products that help end-users and owners save time and money. I would not say it’s limited by capacity of the hoist, but more by duty cycle and up-time necessity of the equipment.

Brian Cook (Conductix-Wamplfer): Within the crane sector, digital automation is mainly focused on the high-capacity cranes. The reason for this is that these types of cranes are manufactured to complete the same lift over and over again, so it’s easier to automate equipment for consistent processes.

Facility managers are still looking to add digital automation into smaller or less frequent-use crane operations, but it’s more difficult to automate equipment that is used to perform different types of crane lifts while also training your personnel to operate cranes for these different lifts.

Dan Mongan (Caldwell): It seems to be more and more prevalent as technology advances; we’re doing more now than we did 20 years ago. Of course, we’re in a sector that, despite technology, deals with the ever-presence of gravity and loads that ‘want’ to fall to ground. That hasn’t changed, and never will.

OCH: Do some clients still ask for manually controlled, non-automatic overhead hoists? Do you still manufacture and supply them?

AK: Yes: customers ask, and we supply. We provide digital and solid-state control systems for manually operated cranes and hoists that can easily be retrofitted and interfaced with automation technology down the road.

BC: At Conductix-Wampfler, we do not manufacture overhead cranes. However, we are seeing that the majority of our customers in this market are still asking for manually controlled cranes and hoists.

The Round Table – Automation in lifting