Northern Territory crane hire business purchases two TIDD PC28 pick and carries with Tier One customers in mind. Cranes and Lifting reports.
AM Cranes operates across the northern most part of Australia offering a range of lifting, rigging and transport services. With yards in Darwin, Katherine and Kingaroy in Queensland, AM Cranes operates a diverse fleet which now includes two new TIDD PC 28s. Adam Murrihy started AM Cranes in 2008.
“It was really a case of starting the business because Darwin required a few more cranes and I wanted to work for myself. The company has grown over the last decade or so. Due to the nature of our work and our customer’s requirements the fleet has had a fairly strong focus on pick and carry cranes. We had 16 in the fleet at one stage, in various shapes and sizes,” he said.
“We work from northern Western Australia right across to our branch in Kingaroy in Queensland with another yard down in Katherine. We are pretty much servicing the whole of the Northern Territory and northern most parts of Australia really. We’re running 12 pick and carries and we also have 16 slew cranes in the fleet. Our smallest slew crane is a Liebherr LTC1045, which is a nice little compact machine and then we go up to a 400t Liebherr which is the largest in the fleet.
“Our client base reaches across the usual industry sectors and includes construction, mining, oil and gas We also do a lot of demolition work on old redundant sites with the larger cranes. A lot of the work, especially for the bigger cranes, is directly with Tier One companies,” Murrihy said.
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With pick and carries being an important element of the company’s fleet, Murrihy has been watching the evolution of the TIDD closely.
“We recently purchased two of the TIDD PC28s, the 28t pick and carries from TRT. I’d been keeping an eye on them over the years and watched TRT grow as a company. I actually visited the factory five years ago, which was back in the early days of the TIDD and I had a look at how they were making them, checked out their manufacturing facilities and we were impressed back then.
“We’ve watched the product grow over the years and we’re now happy to jump on board and support them. We think TRT are very proactive rather than reactive with their design, engineering and manufacturing approach,” Murrihy said.
“Working with Tier One clients, we are obviously aware of the focus on pick and carries in general and the concerns around their safety specifically. One of the biggest drivers around the purchase is the fact and it’s simple stuff. You can take the machines to Tier One customers and demonstrate the risk mitigation of the PC28 with the safety features such as slew safe and additional load charts for static lifts and the other safety features which put the TIDD out in front in the pick and carry race at the moment,” he said.
The TIDD PC28 features improved operational function designed to help operators work more efficiently and comfortably on construction sites and also on the road. Increased lift capacity and greater maneuverability, in smaller work areas, are key benefits of the new crane. The TIDD PC28 is constructed using the highest quality components with safety a major focus with every element of its design.
Safety features include the Dynamic LMI with a deadlock switch inside the cabin and the LMI bridging switch outside the cabin. Slew Safe is an optional safety addition for the TIDD PC28, and has been included on every new crane unit manufactured to date, with only one exception.
Slew Safe (patented: 741038) is designed to prevent rollovers and works with a number of features including audible alarms, LMI warnings and power steering is restricted to 15 per cent to reduce further slewing. Slew Safe cannot be over-ridden but will operate normally in the safe direction.
The new 18.65m high tensile full power boom features a 75 per cent stationary chart for the heavy lifts and 66 per cent pick and carry chart. The boom’s telescope Sections 1 and 2 are fully synchronised and provide hook compensation. Telescope Section 3 is independently operated with its own hydraulic cylinder.
The TIDD PC28 features a 28t maximum lift on the lug and 27.6t on the hook block, delivering lifting capacities for improved efficiency and greater lift options and setting a new benchmark in the industry.
“We took delivery of the cranes in November of last year and the guys from TRT were very hands on and supportive throughout the process. We had an open day and we invited a lot of our clients to go through the features and benefits of the cranes. They each had five minutes in the ‘hot seat’ to see what the crane will and won’t let you do,” Murrihy said.
“TRT had a technician and two of their sales staff on hand to answer questions about the machines. A couple of the guys at the function had come off sites where pick and carries were strictly taboo at the time, so we able to demonstrate that the industry is developing and trying to remove the concerns about operator override and the general safety of the machines.
“As far as the safety aspects of the TIDD are concerned, in our opinion they are ahead of the opposition. As a company, we didn’t need to add more cranes to our fleet we’ve but made the investment in the TIDDs. We’ve seen them come along in leaps and bounds and the features in these particular units give us a significant point of difference when we are talking to our customers,” he said.
Our customers have received the new TIDDs really well and the pair are certainly getting attention as they get around the place,” Murrihy said.