Multimillion Dollar South American Industrial Transportation Company

Description: This publicly traded South American industrial transportation company is based in Argentina with revenues estimated at over $200M annually. The company serves the marine transportation needs of its clients in the shipping markets for grain, forest products, minerals, crude oil, petroleum, and refined petroleum products, as well as the offshore oil platform supply market. They also supply ships for the passenger cruise markets.

Problem: The South American company was seeking 11 cranes to build barges at a new shipyard facility in Argentina. This project called for a combination of custom designed bridge and gantry cranes. Some of the cranes are magnet cranes requiring a 50% impact factor while the others have a combination of one or more main hoists and an auxiliary hoist. Timing was critical in keeping the new facility on schedule.

Competitive Landscape: North American Industries and three Chinese companies were the finalists in the competitive bid for the project. Despite being up against the Chinese manufacturers, the U.S. based North American Industries was able to reduce their own projected costs as a result of working with an affiliate in Colombia where the crane girders would be built. Being a U.S. manufacturer with an excellent reputation, a member of CMAA, and originally referred to the international industrial transportation company by one of its current customers, North American Industries was the preferred vendor and awarded the multimillion dollar contract.

Solution: North American Industries will custom design the 11 cranes for the project ranging in capacity from 10 to 50 metric tons. The bridge and gantry cranes will be engineered for several applications in the barge building process including fabrication shop, hull erection, and steel yard (with outdoor use for some of the cranes). Shipment to the customer is expected to begin just over three months from finalization of the order. Many of the cranes have multiple hoists and trolleys on a single crane which will be engineered by North American Industries to be controlled independently or simultaneously. State of the art technology will be used to synchronize hoist speeds for twin hook magnet applications. North American Industries will provide the engineering and controls to integrate the below the hook magnetic devices to the cranes as well as providing the additional track electrification and cord reel necessary to power the rectifier and magnets.