The term mechanical handling at its core represents the requirement to:

“Support an item during fabrication, erection, integration or transportation”

This support may be designed such that it features as part of the end support solution post installation or integration, and/or provide a means of relocation or re-orientating an item using motive force either internal to the support mechanism or external to it.

Broadly speaking, we split mechanical handling equipment and design services into two key groups namely “Static” and “Articulated”.

Static Equipment – equipment that has no (or negligible) mechanisation. It covers products such as:

• Inline lifting equipment, lifting beams, spreaders and attachments
• Build stools and load spreading
• Jacking and lifting points or attachments
• Transport beams and cradles
• Build and handling jigs

Articulated Equipment – equipment that has a varying degree of mechanisation and articulation built in. It covers a much broader range of products such as:

• Lifting using buoyancy, A-Frame, gantry and spanning beams or jacking from below
• Rotating equipment using single or multiple points of connection and via a single point of articulation or multiple points
• Reorienting equipment using hydraulic power, either rotary drivers or linear acting about a fulcrum
• Motive force in any of the 3 axis of movement using winches and sheaves, tensile strands, inline hydraulics via single stroke or via multiple stroke actuation

To deliver such a broad range of design challenges requires, at its core, a team that fully understands the technical, practical, operational and legislative drivers at play. This team must meld this practical experience with an understanding of mechanical design as well as hydraulic and control system skills.