Archivo de la etiqueta: corebox

EN EL MERCADO PREMIUM DE MECANISMOS, NADIE DA TANTO POR TAN POCO

Fidelizar a nuestros clientes y a los clientes de nuestros distribuidores es una prioridad.

La nueva reestructuración de GH, con una orientación clara hacia el mercado, ha dado como resultado una nueva organización de la empresa que ha transformado su fisonomía con cinco nuevas Unidades de Negocio.

José Antonio Astigarraga, director de la Unidad de Negocio de Componentes de Grúas, nos ofrece su particular visión sobre la gestión de esta parte nuclear del negocio de GH.

Los principales retos a los que nos enfrentamos son, en primer lugar, la innovación, para hacer de GH un referente en innovación dentro del mercado PREMIUM, añadiendo más valor al producto y manteniendo un nivel de precios competitivo.

En segundo lugar, ofrecer al mercado una gama de productos lo más completa y amplia posible. Deberíamos ser capaces de dar soluciones globales de elevación, desde grúas ligeras y polipastos de cadena, a polipastos de cable de altas capacidades.

En tercer lugar, satisfacción del cliente: fidelizar a nuestros clientes y a los clientes de nuestros distribuidores por medio de un producto y servicio que cubra las exigencias y expectativas de estos.

También dotar a nuestros distribuidores y filiales, verdaderos “compañeros de viaje”, de las herramientas y argumentos necesarios para que puedan desarrollar sus negocios en sus respectivos mercados. De esta manera promovemos el WIN WIN con beneficios para todos.

Y, por último, crear un sentimiento de pertenencia a la Unidad de Negocio (UN), compartir los objetivos y valorar el desempeño de las personas que componen la unidad.

Los equipos que conforman la actual gama de GH tienen un nivel tecnológico altísimo. Podemos competir con multinacionales que multiplican nuestros recursos de igual a igual y salir airosos del envite.

Algunos puntos diferenciales son:

Variador en elevación de serie hasta GHE17 (próximo).
Polipastos con el mejor sistema de traslación del mercado.
Célula de carga tipo bulón y cables de elevación especiales de serie.
En un futuro inmediato, el COREBOX de serie.

Ver entrevista completa.

IN THE PREMIUM EQUIPMENT MARKET, NOBODY GIVES SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE

For us, our market is the world, but we must not forget that GH’s plans for international implementation are strategic.

José Antonio Astigarraga, director of the Crane Components Business Unit, offers us his unique view on the management of this core part of GH’s business.

The main challenges we face are, in this order: innovation, to make GH a leader in innovation within the PREMIUM market, adding more value to the product and maintaining a competitive price level.

Second, to offer the market a product range that is as complete and broad as possible.
We need to be able to provide global lifting solutions, from lightweight cranes and chain hoists to high capacity cable hoists.

Third, customer satisfaction: Building the loyalty of our customers and those of our distributors through a product and service that meets their demands and expectations.

Also, providing our distributors and subsidiaries, our real “travel companions”, with the tools and arguments necessary for them to develop their businesses in their respective markets. In this way, we promote a WIN-WIN situation which benefits all.

And, finally, to create a sense of belonging within the Business Unit (BU), share the objectives and assess the performance of the people who make up the unit.

The equipment that makes up the current GH range is of the very highest technological level. We can compete with multinationals with far greater resources on an equal footing and come through with flying colours.

I would like to highlight some differentiators:

Standard variable-frequency drive for lifting up to GHE17 (released soon).
Hoists with the best drive system in the market.
Bolt load cell and special lifting cables as standard.
COREBOX as standard in the very near future.

See complete interview.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

«Industry 4.0», Hoist magazine article

Last December, Hoist Magazine published an article about the new trends regarding the developments in the field of intelligent manufacturing in high end industries, emphasizing the machine to machine and machine to product communication.

LOAD LIMITER EVOLVED

A company that is moving quickly on this approach is Spain’s GH Cranes & Components, which has evolved its load limiter technology into its CoreBox which is standard on all new products. “Essentially the CoreBox has evolved into a data logger that is collecting the data from the operation of the cranes,” says Pablo Pedrós Solano, director of engineering and research and development at the company. This data includes information about the load lifted at each time—the overloads, the temperature of the motors and information from several alarms, among others. “The CoreBox is the product collecting the data and then transferring it to different platforms like an App or a PC or the Global Service centre here at GH.”

That the CoreBox now comes as standard highlights the firm’s commitment to future smart technology and means that the customer doesn’t have to buy the device as an addon. One of the biggest benefits, says Solano, is intelligent maintenance: “Many maintenance contracts [are based on periodic] preventive maintenance. With the huge amount of data that we are collecting, we can go from preventive to predictive maintenance [based on actual use]. That is a challenge for the industry—to balance the maintenance mix towards predictive actions.”

Complementing this move to intelligent maintenance, GH Cranes & Components has also launched a new customer portal dedicated to maintenance management designed to be a direct link between the customer and the Global Service centre.

“The cloud-based software allows us to get all of the incidents and tasks that customer sends directly,” says Solano. “It will improve the lead time for fixing or materials requirements. It also grants access to the customer in order to review the historical maintenance data and technical information of the crane.”

The system is also linked to the company’s enterprise resource planning system, allowing the customer to schedule in their maintenance requirements directly. “Very few companies have implemented this gateway,” says Solano.

The firm provides customers with a number of options for accessing the information from the CoreBox data logger: 3G, GPRS, wifi, and local USB connection. It has also developed Apps and software to enable connection from tablets or smartphones as well as the PC or radio remote controls.

A key advantage of the collection and sharing of data is that it can be used by manufacturers to update their products more effectively. It also means investment in new processing capacity. “We will need to be on a strong platform to allow our customers to have all of their data ready and available. But also that the data is available to us to keep updating and improving our products because the research and development department will have valuable information about the way that our cranes are used,” says Solano.

Access to this data is one of the challenges for the industry to contend with and Solano points out that GH will only be able to access this with the customer’s permission.

UK manufacturer Street Crane says that it can provide wifi access to the data from its safe working period (SWP) monitor, which has a data logging function, but so far it is yet to see demand from customers. “We haven’t installed it with a communications module yet because a lot of people are concerned about network security. If you have that simple device that is wifi enabled it is at risk if it is connected to your network, so they are just standalone units at the moment,” says Chris Lindley- Smith, director at the company.

Traynor says: “Cyber incidents are real and a challenge for industry but it is definitely a challenge that can be met and there are lots of different ways to address that. It comes down to things like auditing equipment, who is authorised to get to the information. How and who can work with it, ensuring the integrity of the data, where information has gone and who has had access to it.”

This could see the need for nondisclosure agreements to ensure that information is protected, says Thomas Kraus, support centre director for Stahl CraneSystems, which is owned by Konecranes: “For sure that with this information you can give the customers a better service, there is no question, but you need access to the information and this must be solved first.”

Link to complete article «www.hoistmagazine.com»