Relocating a heavyweight

Since Monday, it’s been removal time at Krones – the first exhibits have left our halls. Their destination: Hall B6 at the exhibition centre in Munich.

I was present myself at the loading and unloading procedures, and can give you my personal verdict: there are (even) greater challenges involved than with a move to the fifth floor of an old building.

For example, when the exhibit weighs a good 37 tons, and is not exactly small and handy-sized. Which is why some of our colleagues did a lot of hard thinking about how to get the heavyweight out of the factory hall, onto the low-loader, all the way to Munich, and then into the exhibition hall itself.

Part 1 of the solution: the low-loader “simply” drives into the hall. Simultaneously, three large lift-trucks raise the machine, the low-loader positions itself underneath, and once the machine has been lowered onto it drives out of the hall again. Sounds quite easy? Well, in principle yes, if it weren’t for the size and weight of the machine, and the pretty limited space in the hall – so the fork-lift and truck drivers had quite a lot to cope with. Which is one of the reasons why the loading procedure elicited from several colleagues the sober yet admiring comment: “We’ve never had anything like this before”.

Part 2 of the solution was a bit simpler: until Wednesday morning there was enough space in the exhibition hall for manoeuvring with lift-trucks and cranes. So here, too, the low-loader could drive completely into the hall, and deposit the machine in its approximate final position. Here, by the way, a relatively small strip of adhesive tape with felt-pen markings was a big help – so it’s not really all that different from orientation for the removal men in an old building’s apartment.

Because Hall B6 is so much higher than parts of our production halls in Neutraubling, unloading was comparatively uncomplicated: two large cranes lifted the machine off the truck, balanced it, and put it down on the designated marking.

 

And there the heavyweight is now awaiting the beginning of the drinktec on 11 September – and then we’ll be able to reveal to you which of our solutions is hidden under the white film!