All good things come in threes: ABUS crane trio at SALFA in Chile

Salinas y Fabres (SALFA), a company in Chile, was founded 85 years ago. Today the company represents many international manufacturers in the fields of agricultural, forestry and construction machinery as well as trucks and passenger cars in Chile. John Deere, Renault Trucks, and Chevrolet are among the 30 brands represented. SALFA (www.salfa.cl) operates a dense network of service stations with spare parts warehouses for repairs, inspections and maintenance in addition to the sales offices. A total of 50 branches with sales and service staff are spread throughout the country—always close to the customer and with trained personnel—in 24 cities from Arica in the far north of the country to Punta Arenas in the south. Just a short while ago the company was awarded a “Great Place to Work” prize placing it among the top companies in Chile. JJ Crane (www.jjcrane.cl), the ABUS partner in Chile, took this recognition for SALFA as an added incentive when it came to equipping further SALFA sites with crane and lifting technology.

Several electric overhead travelling cranes have been in use at SALFA since 2016. JJ Crane also provided advice, sales, assembly and commissioning for the equipment of another service and maintenance base. Once again, an EOT crane was installed in the main bay where agricultural machinery and tractors are serviced. This EOT crane comes in the ELK single girder EOT crane design with a span of 16.5 metres and a lifting capacity of 3.2 tonnes. The ELK crane is used to lift tractors and features the radio remote control ABURemote to allow the operator to keep an eye on the crane and the load in the hook from a safe location.

Equipping the engine workshop presented JJ Crane with a special challenge because despite the low overall height of the building optimum utilisation of the available room height was to be achieved when lifting the engine blocks and other components. The solution was an EHB-X single-girder crane from ABUS’ modular suspended rail system. A very low overall height of the entire crane installation was achieved by raising the crane so that the crane girder does not run underneath but between the crane runways. A maximum load of 1 tonne can be moved with this crane.

The “crane trio” was completed by a mobile gantry LPK with a SWL of 400 kilogrammes. The LPK is used for different lifting operations inside as well as outside the bay. SALFA is using the LPK as a typical workshop crane. However, the LPK is versatile in its applications: it may be used for repair work, tool changes on plastic injection moulding machines or in warehouse technology with small lifting capacities of up to 2 tonnes for example. This crane can be moved easily and quickly thanks to its four lockable castor wheels should it be needed at a different location or if it is to be used flexibly at several workplaces. Two 90° directional locks (with wheel stop and swivel stop) ensure safe operation at the place of use.

Three different load capacities, three different applications: SALFA is now using three custom-fit ABUS crane solutions with their “trio of cranes”. SALFA also plans to fit further service stations with various crane systems.