The Heavy Lift business unit of Monadelphous Group recently added new models to its fleet including new Tadano Demag crawlers and hydraulics. Lorna Rechichi, Heavy Lift General Manager, and Dave Muirhead, Technical Services Manager, provide background to the organisation and discuss its Heavy Lift business.
Monadelphous is a leading Australian engineering group providing construction, maintenance and industrial services to the resources, energy and infrastructure sectors. In 2022, Monadelphous celebrated 50 years in business and today is involved in some of Australia’s largest and most complex projects.
“Overall, the Monadelphous Group is a large construction and maintenance business, with two operating divisions and a great many business units within it. The Heavy Lift business unit sits inside our Engineering Construction division,” said Lorna.
“The Heavy Lift business was formed approximately 15 years ago and has developed considerably over this time as a result of the construction activities of Monadelphous. We have amassed a large fleet of mobile all terrains, crawler cranes, self-propelled modular trailers (SPMTs), through to specialised lifting equipment like the Enerpac gantry system.
“Up until 2016 we mainly serviced construction projects, but that year we diversified to deliver standalone crane services packages of work direct to external customers. Since then, we’ve grown significantly as a result of working directly for customers, including Fortescue and Woodside, having proven ourselves as a highly capable and trusted heavy lift delivery partner.
“We provide everything from general crane services, which includes wet hire cranes with operators and riggers with supervision to manage projects such as shutdowns and turnarounds – right through to supporting construction projects with heavy lift and modular transportation solutions. With the SPMTs we have been moving modules on projects like Iron Bridge for Fortescue, in the Pilbara region of WA, and the West Gate Tunnel Project in Victoria for the CPB John Holland joint venture. We have really become quite a diversified business,” she said.
“One of the unique capabilities with Monadelphous Heavy Lift is our large engineering team. We support all of our activities internally, be that a lift or transport study, right through to in-house design of spreader beams, lifting beams, and any unique structural items that are required for lifting and transportation. We can fabricate and test these items as well. We also have our own rigging stores within the business, which are NATA certified. This enables us to assemble rigging, load test it, certify it to support both our own activities and those of our customers,” said Lorna.
“As Monadelphous, we can offer our clients a multi-disciplined and integrated service in conjunction with our construction or maintenance teams, and in developing solutions we draw on our broad experience in construction and maintenance to provide a unique experience.”
Lorna goes on to highlight Alevro, the joint venture between Monadelphous’ Heavy Lift business and global heavy lift and shifting specialists, Fagioli. The joint venture is designed to unlock increased capability and capacity to deliver significant resources projects in Australia. Alevro is transforming the delivery of complex heavy industrial projects, providing turnkey heavy lifting and shift services backed by engineering expertise, which is delivered by an integrated team.
$5.2 billion Pluto Train 2 expansion of a second LNG train at the existing Pluto LNG onshore facility near Karratha in Western Australia operated by Woodside.
One of the first major projects for the Alevro joint venture is the estimated $5.2 billion Pluto Train 2 expansion of a second LNG train at the existing Pluto LNG onshore facility, near Karratha in Western Australia, which is operated by Woodside.
“Alevro is delivering heavy haulage, cranes and major complex lifts for the Pluto Train 2 project for Bechtel,” Lorna explains.
“Securing the contract emphasises our capabilities in not only operating a large Australian based fleet, but also having access to a global fleet of equipment, and more specialised engineering expertise that Fagioli brings to the JV.
The passion for cranes within the Monadelphous business is deep-rooted and comes from the founder and former chairman, John Rubino, who sadly passed away earlier this year.
“John saw the opportunity and the value in owning our equipment and was responsible for the purchase of the first cranes. Owning our own cranes is deeply rooted in our capabilities,” said Lorna.
Dave Muirhead, Technical Services Manager, goes on to discuss the capabilities of the Monadelphous fleet.
“Monadelphous operates a very large fleet and could be considered one of the largest in the country for a construction company. At the smaller end of the pick and carry fleet we have everything from a 15 tonne through to the 25 tonne capacities. We operate a large fleet of rough terrain cranes and typically, these are 70 tonne capacity up to 110 tonne Tadanos. From an all-terrain point of view, we go from 40 tonne capacity right up to 450 tonne, with our latest and largest addition being a Liebherr LTM-1450-8.1, which we brought into the fleet 18 months ago,” he said.
The investment in the fleet is continual and there are some significant additions coming this year highlights Lorna.
“We have made a significant investment in new cranes, with a specific focus on crawlers adding six new crawlers to support the surge in construction work. These include the Tadano Demag CC-2400-1s, 400t capacity lattice boom crawlers, the first of which was commissioned in June. Up to the 1,600 tonne capacity, CC88.1600, coming in 2024 which will be the highest capacity crane in Australia with the additional specifications we’ve added.
“Two Liebherr LR 1300.1s with 300 tonne capacities which join several already in the fleet, and later in the year we will take delivery of the Liebherr LR-1700.1 which combines the benefits of the low-cost transport of a 600t class crawler, with the performance of a 750t class lattice boom,” said Lorna.
With the fleet frequently operating in remote areas of Western Australia, product support, maintenance and service is a critical issue. Lorna explains how Monadelphous manages this aspect of the business.
“We have our own in-house maintenance team which predominantly consists of field service crane mechanics, and crane technicians. Being in such a specialised field, our team members are based on different projects and operational sites, they’re essentially field service based, so everyone operates out of field service vehicles.
“We also lean on some of the local subcontractors for more specialised support and obviously we work very closely with Tadano, Liebherr, Manitowoc, and other OEMs for the more specialised support and for parts,” he said.
With much of the fleet working remotely the importance of telematics and remote diagnostics capabilities are factored in when deciding which cranes to purchase, explains Lorna.
“Remote diagnostics is becoming increasingly important and with our latest Tadano all terrains we are opting for the IC-1 Plus system. This provides remote diagnostics capabilities to diagnose issues and have an OEM technician log into the machine directly if required.
“We’ve had that ability across our crawler fleet with the Liebherr systems and as our cranes become increasingly computerised, this aspect of managing the assets becomes increasingly important.
“In all Monadelphous vehicles we run in-vehicle monitoring systems (IVMS) which help us monitor driver activities and help identify behaviours such as excessive speed, harsh braking, rapid acceleration or drowsy driving so we can implement actions to keep our people safe.”
Environmental, social and corporate governance are also a strong focus and are all part of Monadelphous’s commitment to a sustainable future, she added.
“This year we released our Emissions and Energy Reduction Roadmap: Net Zero. This includes four key pillars which includes the ‘greening’ of our fleet from the light vehicles we operate, through to our bigger equipment, including cranes.
“At the moment we are investigating the feasibility of trialling electric cranes and how they might work in the fleet, particularly in remote operations.
“We have our own workshops and facilities that we’re committed to ‘greening’ as best we can, and we are focused on the issues within our control and putting initiatives in place to support the net-zero achievement,” said Lorna.
Sustainability and adding social value are a key focus and Monadelphous is particularly proud of its Indigenous engagement program.
“We are pleased with the progress we have been making with our Indigenous commitments and participation. We have an Indigenous and Female Pathways Program in the Heavy Lift business, where we are upskilling people to become crane operators.
“We currently have eight people in the program, and we are focused on diversifying our workforce wherever possible. We have some long-term contracts which enable us to introduce traineeships and pathway programs and upskill our people.
“Monadelphous is committed to supporting and investing in the communities where we operate, with our goal to leave a positive legacy. We want to employ locals and we want to be supplied locally as best we can.
“We have a number of engagements with Indigenous heavy lifting businesses, transport and equipment providers as well as labour hire. Heavy Lift in particular has a significant portion of spend in this space, and has developed long-term and meaningful engagements,” she said.
Lorna explains how the Heavy Lift business approaches sustainability and a net zero target when it comes to managing the crane fleet.
“Monitoring and tracking systems help us to continually develop our path towards a sustainable future. An example of how we do things differently to other businesses involves our all-terrain fleet,” she said
“We have invested in duplicate and spare sets of counterweights which we leave strategically on sites, so we are not spending as much time, energy and fuel moving counterweights between sites. We’re essentially trying to minimise this footprint by moving just the car body between sites wherever possible. Obviously, it makes us more efficient as a business and reduces unnecessary transportation activities as well,” she said.
“I visited bauma last year and we were very interested in some of the developments from Tadano including the hybrid and electric power packs, the e-packs. We are examining our options in terms of what we can introduce into our fleet at the appropriate time.”
She goes on to explain how the diversity of the fleet is specifically designed to meet the needs of the industries and customers of the Heavy Lift business services.
“We are constantly assessing projects in the pipeline; what type of work will be involved and what our customers will need. We then make decisions about the make-up of the fleet to complement the work.
“We encourage our customers to bring their problems to us and through our experienced project operations and engineering teams, we examine the best methodology to solve them. Our solution might not include the biggest crane or even a crane at all. Our team is focused on solving a problem in the smartest, safest, and most efficient manner,” Lorna said.
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