MHE-Demag Indonesia Demonstrates Engineering Excellence With First Curved-track Gantry Crane

MHE-Demag Indonesia broke new ground with the delivery of its first innovative Curved-track Gantry Crane to PT Kereta Api Logistik (KALOG), an Indonesian rail logistics company operating in passenger trains and forwarding.

MHE-Demag Indonesia was approached with an enquiry by KALOG, as they had received a special order from the mining company PT Bukit Asam, to transfer their coal containers at the Kertapati Palembang Station in South Sumatra.

The large order presented KALOG with a dilemma in terms of efficiency, as they had only been handling containers using a reach stacker, which could only handle two railway lines out of their five. If the reach truck was used to cross over some rails to handle containers on other lines, it would cause damage to the rails. Eventually, KALOG decided on the installation of two new gantry cranes as the best solution.

From the outset, the installation was faced with a major hurdle, as an 84m stretch of the railway was curved at an 800m radius. This meant that MHE-Demag’s engineering expertise was called upon to customise one of the two 32t Double-girder Gantry Cranes into a Curved-track Gantry Crane.

After the cranes had been successfully built, another challenge presented itself as the installations were to be done on an active railway. With trains frequently passing through the site, the team was only given two hours per day to carry out the installations.

MHE-Demag Indonesia’s project engineer, Setyoadi Lihartomo commented on the amount of effort that went into making sure it was a job well done.

“Time and coordination were the most vital thing in this project. If we were late even by a minute, there would be penalties!” he shares.

Despite the challenges, the cranes were successfully installed in time on the designated locations. The new gantry cranes have increased KALOG’S container handling efficiency by 50% at the Kertapati Palembang Station.

One of the management at KALOG said, “We are happy with MHE-Demag’s full support. When there’s a problem, MHE-Demag handles it responsibly until we are satisfied.”

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