In the traditional research and development process, a crane is built from scratch, with each component designed specifically for the crane it will be used in. Modular design looks at the process differently, using the same components in different cranes in new ways.

The new approach makes it easier to build exciting new cranes, by changing which components are used together. The examples of the innovation made possible by this approach range from small truck cranes, all the way up to super-heavy crawlers.

The benefits for crane users of modular design don’t end there though. As the same parts are used on many different models of crane, fewer parts will be needed by service engineers. Operators will see the same control systems on many cranes, and will need less training. The benefits within the manufacturers’ production facilities will mean that cranes are developed faster, delivered sooner and will cost less.

The modular approach is old news for car and plane builders, but has only over the past few years made its way into the crane industry. Terex and Manitowoc have made their commitment to the new approach clear with frequent references to modular design during product launches, and with the appointment of two expert engineers from the aviation sector to leading development roles.

Terex director of research and development Ralf Ressel came to the company in December 2007 from a senior management position at Airbus. A graduate of EADS’s corporate young manager programme, he has ten years experience with the aviation industry, and also spent two years at Daimler Chrysler. In has last role at Airbus he was senior manager for the A400M cabin and cargo. For two years, from 2003 to 2005, he was project manager for customisation re-engineering for Airbus.

Andreas Schwer, senior vice president of global engineering for Manitowoc’s crane business, was another high flyer in the aviation sector, before joining the US-based crane builder in October 2008. As vice president of design and development for EADS Eurocopter, he developed a centralised, multinational, engineering organisation across France, Germany and Spain. As part of this process he led the re-engineering of all major processes and implemented standardised design and development processes throughout the organisation.

A new approach

Ressel says, “Modular design will be the trend for the future. If you want to do lean, you need modular design. It’s a key enabler of the lean manufacturing process. At the manufacturing stage, there are benefits in tooling savings, and in staff training costs.

“In the car industry, there is a lot of modularity. It allows you to give more choices to customers, and to follow a clear manufacturing process. In the aircraft industry, in organisations like Airbus, sections like the fuselage are built in a modular way, in a lean process.”

The potential for modular design varies depending on the machine you are building. Schwer says, “The more you standardise, the more you compromise on a technical level. You have to find the right balance, and determine what is finally of advantage for the customer.

“In the car industry, businesses like Volkswagen have developed a platform strategy, where different marques, like Audi, VW, Golf or Seat, use the same platform. We can’t go that far, but there is a lot of potential for standardisation.

“There are limits linked to the different size and nature of the cranes, their operational usage and local market requests. For example, different requirements concerning technology level and robustness easiness in handling and cost will define natural limits to standardisation.”

Ressel explains the limits: “There are differences with the car industry; with cranes, you need to optimise to be the best. If you had a too broad platform, your customers would buy a competitor’s better optimised crane, therefore smart modularisation is key. You also have to design modularity that can adapt to each country; for example, so chassis can be adapted to different rules on road regulations.”

The benefits of modularisation apply throughout the supply chain. Ressel says, “The benefits of modularity flow from the design stage, to the manufacturing process, to the customer. From the customer side, there are advantages in supply of spare parts. Components are more standardised, so you need to keep a lower number of parts in stock. For after sales support, you don’t need to train in as much detail for every crane. Training for end users is also easier, as the customer knows the component and its function already.”

Schwer says, “The push for standardisation and modularisation is driven by the need to reduce total cost of ownership for the crane operators. Manitowoc has more potential to do this, due to its extremely wide product range. There has been some standardisation across product lines. There are economies of scale: it reduces the cost of training and spare parts logistics and, furthermore, the need for engineering resources, and the development cycle is faster.”

As Schwer suggests, the most benefit can be achieved by crane builders with the biggest ranges. And as new businesses are acquired, seeing these benefits requires rethinking how the business operates.

Rüdiger Zollondz, senior manager, product marketing, for Terex Cranes, has been ideally placed to see how Demag, and then Terex, adopted this new approach. He says, “Adopting modular design is a natural result of moving from being a holding company, to being a global manufacturing company. You can imagine the power a company like Terex has. Across 15 acquired businesses, there are many benefits from standardisation.

“When you built a crane twenty years ago, components like winches or slew bearings were built into the crane structure. Then winches began to be designed as separate components, and later became modular. Now, whole systems, like the hydraulic package, are pre-assembly.

“In Zweibrücken, Terex is hiring from the car industry. We’ve got a new factory manager, who previously turned around a car factory in Cologne.

“In the automotive industry, this approach might be boring, but for the crane industry it is the rising trend. It’s a natural move for a company like Terex, that has such a widespread product range. It’s not like in the past, when every crane was designed on its own. With the Chinese coming in as competitors, this is what will keep us ahead.”

For both companies, standardisation and modular design started at individual businesses, but is now being applied across their ranges. Schwer says, “We did considerable standardisation within product lines, but standardisation across product lines has only become possible with the creation of Manitowoc’s wide product range.

“Cross product line standardisation can bring much more than we see today. If a customer has a range of Manitowoc products, they will always see the same technologies. It will make training for operators and service teams cheaper and bring benefits to the certification process. There will be significant cost saving benefits for customers.

“When a customer buys a new crane, they will not have to pay the R&D cost of a new boom; that cost will already have been amortised across other cranes in the range. And, with the reduced number of different parts, the overall reliability and quality of the cranes will increase further.”

Modularity isn’t applied at a single level, but throughout the crane. Ressel says, “There are three levels of modularisation that can be defined. At the first level, there are simple parts, like proximity switches. Next comes basic modules, such as drivelines, jibs or winches. Finally, there are complete crane modules, such as the superstructure, boom or carrier.”

Schwer says, “We can apply some standardisation across product lines like Grove’s GMK range, our rough terrains, National’s truck cranes and our Chinese mobile cranes. Many of these cranes use, for example, similar suspension systems, chassis, hydraulic components, tyres, wheels, brakes and control systems.

“But standardisation is not limited to a parts and component level: The new TMC540, on our Intermat stand, uses an upper structure from a US mobile TM crane mounted on a standard European truck. One of our TMS cranes, built in the the US, uses a GMK telescopic boom from Germany.

“Standardisation at the component level simplifies our parts supply logistics and makes it easier to maintain cranes in the field. It means less training is needed to service new components.”

Unlocking innovation

Both companies have demonstrated the innovation made possible by modularisation with groundbreaking new crane designs. Schwer says, “Modular design offers a higher level of flexibility, and more plug and play systems. We can make use of existing components, and combine them in clever ways to create new lifting solutions. One example of that is the new GSK range, which uses a GMK superstructure mounted on a trailer. Another was the GTK, which mounted a GMK7450 upper on a telescopic tower.

“Further options are under consideration. For example, we may combine existing telescopic crane elements with crawlers, or lattice sections with mobile carriers; it’s something we are investigating.”

Neil Hollingshead, Manitowoc global product manager, all terrain and rough terrain cranes, says, “Superstructures and booms have been standardised on many Manitowoc cranes. For example, the TMC540 is based on the RT540E superstructure. The TM9000E is based on the GMK4080-1 superstructure and boom. We also share swingaway jibs and inserts across our range: the TM9000E and GMK4080-1 use the same swingaway jib.

“There is a lot of commonality in the GMK range. The idea is to have more commonality across ranges. Modularity is also very prevalent within product lines.

“The E series rough terrains have a lot of common elements and in the GMK range, for instance, the GMK5095 and GMK4100-L share the same superstructure and boom, and the GMK5095, 5110-1 and 5130-2 have a common carrier. There are also a lot of common features such as Megatrak suspension and a full all-wheel steering system, operator cabs and Megaform boom elements.”

Terex has used the modular approach to build one of the world’s biggest conventional construction cranes, in a striking and imposing new design: the Terex Twin dual-boom crawler. Ressel says, “We’ve used PPM booms and all terrain booms in our rough terrains. The RT 1120, for example, is built in Waverly, but has a boom made in Germany. One of the most notable examples is the Terex Twin, which reused most components from a standard CC 8800.”

Zollondz adds, “With the Twin, the customer had come to us and asked for a big crane. We initially designed a ring crane, with a huge load moment, but they said, ‘What will we do when it isn’t working?’ By using modular components, they can use parts of it as a standard CC 8800-1 when there isn’t a job for the twin option.”

Increasingly, the same components can be used across a crane builder’s range. Zollondz says, “It’s about taking equipment that is there, and reusing it for a new application. If you take the Zweibrücken [former Terex-Demag] family of ten crawler cranes, you can see some components are shared across the entire range, and some across different capacity bands. Some models use the same booms, some use the same crawlers.

“We use the same slewing gear on eight different models, and the same gear is even used in some counterweight cars. We have the benefit of being able to order parts in greater numbers, and the customer feels that benefit in the price of the crane they buy.”

While modularity brings a wealth of new crane designs, it can also bring uniformity. Ressel says, “From the customer’s point of view, one of the most widespread modular components across the Terex crane range is the IC-1 control system [used in Terex’s all terrain cranes, city cranes, and on some crawlers, including the Twin]. They will see the same look and feel on every crane that uses the system.

“When we design a new crane, we only have to adapt the control system to the new features. At the backend of the system is a CANbus network, so we can add sensors and other components as needed.”

Zollondz adds, “IC-1 presents customers with the same diagnostic systems, and the same software modules.”

Hollingshead says, “There is a common operational system on the GMK range currently. Operational systems are a future candidate to go across different Manitowoc ranges.”

Schwer explains, “Operator controls are one of the hottest candidates to be standardised. They offer some of the most promising cost savings for maintenance, and offer safety and reliability benefits. Today, our Crane Care staff can help customers operating different types of Manitowoc mobile cranes by using the same diagnostics system. This advantage needs to be systematically exploited. For customers and dealers too, it means less training is needed.”

Thinking ahead

For all its benefits, modularity isn’t a quick fix: changing the way a multi-billion dollar global business designs and builds its products takes considerable forethought. Ressel explains, “The advantages multiply, but so can the challenges multiply in the same way. There are scale effects in purchasing that help. Something that makes the engineering more difficult, is that if you change a modular component, you have to investigate what that change means for every crane.

“When you design a crane using an established modular component, the component has already been tested in the field. It helps the design process, as you don’t have to design a new component every time. And, you benefit more, the more you think of modularity upfront. We try to think of modularity right from the beginning.”

Schwer says, “When you design a new crane, you might target to standardise components and platforms/assemblies across a group of cranes. Then, when you design the next crane, there is no need to restart the process: you’re not reinventing the wheel. Instead, you can just take the product off the shelf.”

That thinking ahead takes skilled, dedicated, engineering staff and efficient systems. Ressel says, “You have to work out how you’re going to implement a new approach. By having a showcase project, like the Twin, you can motivate your staff, and show them how the design process changes.

“The R&D impact is that you will need better product data management. Any designer needs to be able to find the properties of all parts and pick from standard databases. Your product data management tools need to be better to allow you to do that. There’s an issue of communication between engineering departments worldwide: engineers must be able to communicate effectively with each other.”

With their global presence, deep and wide product ranges, and expert engineering teams, these two companies are ideally placed to deliver on the promises modular design offers. As newcomers to the international crane market try to make purchase price the only factor that matters, it will be up to them to demonstrate that a wide choice of reliable, highly optimised cranes can be delivered at a whole life cost that customers are happy to pay.