By investing in larger capacity cranes, Resolution Rigging Services (RRS) has been expanding its tower crane fleet to service growing momentum towards the adoption of Modular Construction processes in the construction industry. Tony Noronha, Director of RRS explains more.
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Modular construction is a process in which a building is constructed off-site, under controlled plant conditions, using the same materials and being designed to the same codes and standards as conventionally built facilities – but in about half the time.
Buildings are produced in “modules” that when put together on site, reflect the identical design intent and specifications of the most sophisticated site-built facility.
“We have been seeing a significant change in the construction sector and the move towards Modular Construction is gathering significant momentum and we are investing in larger capacity tower cranes to keep up with the demand,” said Tony.
“There are a number of reasons for this. Onsite construction has become extremely expensive due to labour costs, so builders are manufacturing modules in factory type environments and bringing them to site prefabricated or in forms of precast panels or precast columns or girder beams.
“The concept minimises labour costs on site and greatly reduces the amount of rubbish generated during the construction process and therefore reduces the costs of moving and disposing of rubbish from a construction site.
“With 60 – 90 per cent of the construction completed inside a factory, the risk of weather delays is also mitigated. Buildings are occupied sooner, creating a faster return on investment. We have been finding these modules are getting bigger and heavier and that’s the reason we have been investing in larger capacity cranes,” he said.
Tony goes on to discuss the additions RRS has made to its fleet.
The additions include a new Favelle Favco M220DX tower crane with a freestanding height of 48m. It features a 61.5m boom length lifting 29t to 15m and 2.5t at 60.4m radius. It has just been recommissioned with a brand-new power pack to lift a 4t load at speeds of over 205m per minute.
Image: RRS
“This is perfect tower crane for high rise projects when speed is required to elevate materials to 40 stories and above,” said Tony.
“Seeing the move towards Modular Construction, we also invested in a brand new Favelle Favco M630D with a freestanding height of 64m tower height and a 73.4m jib length lifting 50t to 20m and 5.1t to 71.7m radius was recently commissioned for work on a data centre, where it worked for 15 months lifting precast columns and precast panels.
“We’ve gone a little bit further and made a significant capital investment in a brand new Favelle Favco M860DX MK II, which is an upgraded version of the current M860DX. With this model, Favelle Favco added an extra boom section, meaning it has 82.6m of boom and can lift 5.7t at 80.7m.
In our opinion, Favelle Favco dominates in the bigger end of the market although there are obviously other brands of luffing cranes,” said Tony.
Another recent purchase is a brand new Favelle Favco M860DX with a freestanding tower height of 64m and an 82.6m jib length lifting 96t to 13.5m and 5.7t to a 80.7m radius. This was also commissioned for a recent data centre project where it will be lifting precast columns and precast panels.
Resolution Rigging Services has also welcomed other new arrivals, including a Liebherr 340EC-B 16 flat top tower crane with a freestanding tower height of 57m and with a 78m boom able to lift 16t to 21m and 2.1t to a 78m radius. Upon its arrival it was immediately commissioned to a project for a valued client.
Another arrival is the Liebherr 470EC-B 20 flat top tower crane, freestanding 80.1m and with an 83m boom lifting 20t to 24.4m and 2.2t at 83m radius. Resolution Rigging Services says it was the first to introduce this model into Australia.
“We were honoured to be the first to introduce the crane into the market, it’s the biggest flat-top manufactured by Liebherr and we look forward to having this crane alongside our other 4 Liebherr 280EC-H 12 model tower cranes,” said Tony.
Number crunching
Tony and the team at Resolution Rigging Services are busy with the construction of Data Centres as well as servicing other areas of the construction sector.
“We are working on a number of Data Centre projects and this type of work has increased significantly over the last few years,” said Tony.
“With everyone using smartphones and other devices, and all of the data being stored in the cloud, we are going to see more centres to store the data. Big players like Microsoft, Airtrunk and Amazon are making considerable investments in the Australian data storage market.”
“The greater Sydney construction sector seems to be travelling reasonably well, although the residential market is very, very slow. We are seeing that smaller builders are finding it hard to finance and actually build units.
“We are fortunate in that for some time we have worked for one particular developer and builder which continues to supply the market with housing, which is an advantage to us. We’ve got quite a number of projects online with this particular developer.
“We are also seeing a lot of activity coming in commercial construction with schools, hospitals, shopping centres and office space going up. We are also seeing more hospitals and infrastructure projects coming online which are obviously being backed with a lot of government funding,” said Tony.
There are significant benefits for the customer with larger capacity cranes, says Tony.
“These larger capacity cranes also feature significantly longer booms which means more coverage on site. One large luffer can replace two or three smaller cranes with significant cost savings for the customer,” he said.
The Resolution Rigging Services fleet is growing and so are the teams supporting the fleet, says Tony.
“We have 25 tower cranes in the fleet and there are more cranes arriving later in the year. We are employing more people, including more office staff, to cope with the demand. There are definite signs that despite some of the challenges the construction sector is currently experiencing, the demand doesn’t seem to be backing off,” said
Over the years, Tony and his team have worked on providing customers with turnkey solutions, starting with the cranes and including retractable loading platforms and the BlokCam wireless camera and audio system.
Resolution Rigging Systems operates over 100 Crane Deck retractable loading platforms.
“We’ve been offering our Crane Deck retractable loading platforms for a few years now. They come in two configurations, decks that are 2.2 metres and 3.2 metres in depth. They are Australian designed and engineered and manufactured from Australian steel. We offer them as a package with our cranes and customers are happy to receive a quote for the crane and the platforms because it saves them having to go elsewhere,” he said Tony.
“We also continue to offer our Blockcam cameras that are fitting to the hook blocks of the crane and provide great images of the load suspended directly under the hook block. The cameras also provide audio directly to the driver should a two-way radio ever fail in transmission. You can even add a sim card to the monitor and have real time viewing of the crane’s lifting operations from your desktop in the office,” said Tony.