Bill Grosser, head of the crane division of Malaysian group PT PEC-Tech Services, is due to begin a trial using a version of Australian lift planning software Crane Planner.
“We are planning to use palm-held PCs with our lift planning programme by foreman and supervisors at the workface,” Grosser tells Cranes Today. “This will provide for real time lift management and the bonus for the customer is electronic records for future lift planning in maintenance and shutdowns.”
Grosser says that the system would help the lifting team deal with last-minute changes to plan. “When it comes to do the lift, and the weight of the load exceeds what was planned for, we can redo the lift plan. This can happen.”
Users can create a new crane plan on handheld computers via special input screens, but they cannot view the completed plan, because the screen is too small, says Wilfred Heitbaum, managing director of the supplier APMS. Users can also email completed plans to customers using the handheld.
This new system comes out of a cut-down version of the full Crane Planner software running on an Asus palmtop computer with Windows CE, launched three years ago. It was not a great success, Heitbaum says. “We’re finding that most people find the downloading of crane plans, and the uploading of crane load charts on the handheld computer is too difficult. They don’t like it,” Heitbaum says. “They don’t like removing the memory cards to print out the plans.”
The handheld does not create the crane plan itself, but sends the instructions over the internet. In other words, the handheld computer simply accesses an internet front end on the Crane Planner software running on a computer at the company’s headquarters. It prompts users to enter the load weight, distance, lift height, obstacle height, radius and to select a particular crane. Some initial configuration of the handheld is required.
Crane Planner’s mobile web interface is offered as a US$3,000 add-on to a new US$6,500 version of Crane Planner, expected to be released in March 2008.
