As I have been working as a global freight forwarder in Thailand, my customers in manufacturing companies request to install and to remove the machines very often.
There are variety kinds of machines such as Molding Machines, Filing Machines, Press Machines, Lathe and Furnace but those are not easy to carry by human’s hand. Some of those machines have more than 100 million tons weight.
Those machines per a unit costs are not that cheap in general.
It will not be a big problem if we break a couple of mass production cargo (of course, we should not break..), however, it will be serious problem if we make the damages on the “Machines” during transportation.
Senior Cat It will be such a big trouble to make this kind of damages because the customers’s manufacture schedule will be all delayed and the compensation amount for damaged machines will be charged us a lot.
We have been experienced to install, to remove, and to pack many kinds of machines. we also have worked as assembling the plant before.
Through our experiences of transporting the heavy weight cargoes, I would like to explain to you about the machine installation in this time.
Safety is the highest priority for transporting the heavy weight cargoes
You thought that it is very natural to think about the safety with the highest priority all the time but it is a really important thing to make the work with full of safe.
Some people might think that it is easy to transport this cargo weight in a second; however it will be a serious case if the trouble might be caused as a real.
The risk if heavy weight cargos were fall down
It is not easy to make a good position to make gravity in center with nice balance. The heavy weight cargos might be knocked down if you operate forklifts to move them up wrongly.
It might lead personal injuries when the heavy weight cargoes will be fall down on the people. We must avoid this case.
It is not very easy to make the collapsed heavy weight cargoes to the correct position or to the original position.
Senior Seagull We cannot make those cargoes to move back in a second.
We need to pay special attention to transport the heavy weight cargoes since there are high risks for the carriage problems.
Confirm the plan and packing list
Depends on the kinds of machines, we are basically requesting to the customers to provide the plans or pictures of the machines.
We need to plan well to transport the cargoes all in order by checking the actual size and weight so that we can decide which heavy machineries are the best assigned to unload and to install the machines.
Especially, it is very important to know the actual weight of the cargoes. We trust the information of the cargo weight data in packing list to arrange our heavy machineries, but there were wrong cargo weight written there before…
The example of a too much dangerous case
We got a request from the customer to instal the machines and we also arranged to carry the machine from the port terminal to the customer’s factory by a trailer.
It showed that the cargo weight was 6.3 tons in packing list so we prepared a 10 tons forklift in order to unload the machine safely from the trailer. We actually tried to bring it up but the position of the cargo carriage was very unstable.
We were not able to unload the cargo. We decided to cancel this for safety purpose and it was very dangerous to unload the cargo with this forklift so we arranged crane next day instead.
Actual cargo weight was 9.2 tons instead of 6.3 tons…
※The crane has the instrument which we can measure the actual weight. 10 tons fork-lift can bring up 10 tons cargo a little but the forklift cannot move it around.
Cat & Seagull Hey, it is bloody dangerous!!
Cancellation of this work was correct decision because the machine in the cargo might be broken if we continued to unload it with the forklift.
Necessary of preview the cargoes in advanced
It is not really easy to move the heavy weight cargoes. We need to stop the machines every time when we try to move the cargo little or change the direction to bring in.
We need to think and set the routing of carrying the cargo from the unloaded position to the installing position. We also need to ask the customers to clean up their staff if those are on the routing.
Transport the heavy weight cargoes by using the necessary heavy machineries and tools
There are variety of necessary heavy machineries and tools: different sizes of forklift, cranes, chains, belts, rollers, temporarily mountings, iron plates, blue sheets and so on.
We use the certain heavy machineries and tools depending on the situation.
Senior Seagull It is a real craftsman skill.
Level out to make the cargoes horizontally
The machines must be located horizontally all the time. There are different situations and cases which the locating area is not always horizontal or We need to adjust the hight to make the machines horizontally.
We use the instrument to confirm whether the machines are in the horizontal position and then the installation of the machine will be finished completely.
Senior Cat The machines accuracy will be decreased if the machine positions are not in horizontal.
Trail run to operate the machines
We request the customers to do trail run to operate the machines after the installation. The trail run is not our job but we need to arrange the staff to disassemble the machines if the trail run has some problems.
Our company arranges the temp workers for machine overhaul so we will support to the customer’s trail run until the machines work without any problems.
Conclusion
We explained in this blog about focusing on machines in overweight cargoes installation. The first priority is always carrying with full of safety.
In order to maintain the safe work situation, we need to cooperate with the experienced heavy cargo specialists.
The cost of heavy weight cargoes transportation is expensive but our company offers the reasonable price with the best service by using the strong connection with locals and high communication ability.
Please contact us if you need to transport the heavy weight cargoes.
