Sabre Industries Acquires Two Shuttlelift Gantry Cranes
04/25/2013 - Shuttlelift announced that Sabre Industries Inc. took delivery of two DB 30 double-beam mobile gantry cranes, one each for its operations in Sioux City, Iowa, and Alvarado, Texas.
Shuttlelift announced that Sabre Industries Inc. took delivery of two DB 30 double-beam mobile gantry cranes, one each for its operations in Sioux City, Iowa, and Alvarado, Texas. The machines were delivered last November, and according to Darwin Gamm, director of special projects for Sabre Industries’ Towers and Poles division, they are meeting and exceeding expectations.
Sabre Industries provides highly engineered structures used for electric transmission and distribution, wireless communications, renewable energy, and government and defense infrastructure. As a tower and pole manufacturer, Sabre must be able to move sheet steel that will eventually be bent into an octagonal tapered shape. The sheets can be up to 60 feet in length, 12 feet wide and half an inch thick; and until recently, Gamm said the company was using forklifts for material handling.
“The two forklifts would be used in tandem to lift the sheets so they could be place on trailers,” he explained. “I called it ‘synchronized swimming.’ Imagine synchronizing two forklift operators, and the potential damage that could be caused by knifing under the sheets and driving over the steel.”
Gamm and his team were looking for a safer, more efficient way to move the plate steel, particularly at Sabre’s new, 150-acre greenfield site in Iowa. The raw material yard at Sabre’s Texas location, he said, needed the same type of machinery to operate as safely and efficiently as possible. They were previously using a different manufacturer’s gantry crane.
“I got the parameters of what we needed from our operation in Texas, and I approached a couple of mobile-gantry manufacturers for quotes,” Gamm recalled. “That’s how I found Shuttlelift.”
One major advantage of using a Shuttlelift DB 30 mobile gantry crane was that Sabre could minimize its aisle size. According to Reinholtz, Shuttlelift’s sales manager, the forklifts required approximately 30-foot-wide aisles. The gantry needed just 7 feet.
“That’s the beauty of a gantry crane,” he said.
Gamm agreed, noting, “We could have two stacks of steel and a trailer truck under the gantry, and all we had to do was lift it, move it and set it down.”
According to Gamm, one important part of the gantry crane sale was the use of an existing supplier at Sabre’s facilities, Walker Magnetics. Shuttlelift was willing to work with the supplier to provide a magnet package for Sabre’s new machines.
“These cranes are tailor-made for Sabre’s operation,” Reinholtz said. “We wanted to give them exactly what they were looking for, and not making them use a different supplier was a key solution.”
In addition to the magnet package, the Shuttlelift DB 30s for Sabre Industries also feature increased gradeability, a cold-start engine package, operator cab air-conditioning and heating, work and drive lights, and a sound suppression kit. Gamm acknowledged that the magnet package was a critical element of Sabre’s decision to partner with Shuttlelift. But perhaps even more important, he said, was the ease of doing business.
“Dan and the Shuttlelift support staff were so responsive,” he explained. “They really listened to our needs. When making our final decision, we had to look at the overall value and make sure we had the best fit for our application.”
Gamm also expressed appreciation for the short time frame between order and delivery.
“It was really fast,” he noted. “Shuttlelift really pushed it through, considering our purchase order was in mid-May or June. That’s a fairly good turn-around time. And the installation crew was fantastic! They really knew what they were doing and provided good training for our operators.”
“Altogether, Shuttlelift has been so efficient and pleasant to work with,” he said. “There could be another machine in our future; the utility business has expanded so much, there are already discussions about expanding our operation.”
Shuttlelift rubber-tired gantry cranes are the preferred customer-inspired solution for heavy lifting requirements and are manufactured to specification for a multitude of applications, worldwide. The Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin-based company manufactures cranes with capacities ranging from 15 to 1,000 U.S. tons, all of which are supported by a global network of experienced dealers. Through superior engineering innovations, Shuttlelift has become one of the premier lines in the today’s materials-handling industry.
