Two 16,000 lb Cabinets,
Lifted Three Floors Up.
A major aerospace manufacturing facility took delivery of two electrical cabinets — 16,000 lb each, shipped in twelve separate pieces — that had to be assembled on the ground floor and placed on a raised mezzanine on the third floor. Forklifts were off the table: too much weight, and a mezzanine floor that couldn't take the wheel loading. Two eme 11000 Series aluminum gantry cranes assembled the cabinets on the first floor, rode a boom truck up to the mezzanine, and rolled the finished cabinets onto their raised foundations — on time and under budget.
- ASME B30.17 Cranes and Monorails
- CSA B167 Overhead Travelling Cranes
- Aluminum Design Manual (ADM) US aluminum structural design
- CSA S157 Strength Design in Aluminum
OSHA requires a crane to be proof-load tested to 125% of rated capacity before it is placed into service — an obligation on the employer putting the crane to work. eme completes that proof test on every gantry as part of its quality-control process, so each one ships with applicable product documentation: an engineer-stamped drawing, a Certificate of Test at 125% of rated capacity, and a welded aluminum structure produced under CSA W47.2 certification by qualified aluminum welders. The two 11000 Series gantries on this project shipped with the same documentation set — pre-service proof test already done — as every other 11000 Series unit in the field.
- Industry
- Aerospace Manufacturing
- Application
- Multi-level move · two 16,000 lb electrical cabinets · ground-floor assembly to third-floor mezzanine
- Equipment
- Two eme 11000 Series Aluminum Gantry Cranes (5-tonne / 11,000 lb each)
- Constraint
- Forklifts ruled out — cabinet weight + mezzanine floor-load limit
- Result
- Cabinets assembled and placed on the third-floor mezzanine — on time and under budget
Two 16,000 lb Cabinets, Bound for the Third Floor.
A major aerospace manufacturing facility took delivery of two electrical cabinets, each weighing 16,000 lb. The cabinets shipped in twelve separate pieces and landed on the ground floor — but that wasn't where they needed to be.
The finished cabinets had to end up on a raised mezzanine built on top of the third floor. That meant three distinct stages of work: assemble the twelve-piece cabinets on the first floor, move them up through the building, and position each one onto a raised foundation at a specific spot on the mezzanine.
The Forklift Was Off the Table.
The default tool for moving heavy equipment inside a plant is a forklift. Here it was ruled out on two counts.
First, the weight: a 16,000 lb cabinet is beyond what the facility's forklifts could safely carry. Second — and more limiting — the destination: the mezzanine floor had a load-bearing limit that a loaded forklift would exceed. A forklift concentrates its own mass plus the load onto a small footprint of front wheels, and the mezzanine structure couldn't take that. The crew needed equipment that could handle 16,000 lb without a forklift's deadweight and without its concentrated wheel loading.
Two 11000 Series Gantries, Working the Cabinets Floor to Floor.
The facility paired two eme 11000 Series aluminum gantry cranes — 5-tonne / 11,000 lb rated capacity each. Across the job they did three things:
- Assembled the twelve-piece cabinets on the ground floor — handling each component as the cabinet came together.
- Moved up by boom truck: a boom truck made the vertical lift between floors, carrying both gantries and the assembled cabinets up to the third-floor mezzanine — the gantries themselves were not hoisted while carrying a load.
- Rolled the finished cabinets into place — the gantries' mobility let the crew move each loaded cabinet to its location on the mezzanine and set it onto its raised foundation.
An aluminum gantry carries its own weight on four casters and adds far less deadweight than a forklift — which is exactly why it could work on a mezzanine that a forklift couldn't.
The lift was planned so the cabinet load was distributed between the two rated gantries — each 11000 Series gantry carrying roughly 8,000 lb of the 16,000 lb total, about 73% of its 11,000 lb rating and below the ~75% per-crane derating threshold that applies to synchronized multi-crane lifts. Final rigging and load-control procedures were handled by the project team.
Light Enough for the Mezzanine. Strong Enough for the Cabinets.
- Aluminum cleared the floor-load limit forklifts couldn't. The reason a forklift was ruled out was concentrated wheel loading on a mezzanine the structure couldn't take. A portable aluminum gantry spreads its own weight across four casters and adds a fraction of the deadweight.
- The gantries did the work where the forklift couldn't go. A boom truck handled the vertical move between floors; once on the mezzanine, the portable gantries did the horizontal positioning a forklift would normally do — without the forklift's weight penalty.
- Rolled under load to the exact spot. The cabinets didn't have a single fixed landing point. The gantries rolled each loaded cabinet to its location on the mezzanine and onto its raised foundation.
- Two gantries covered a load a single portable unit wouldn't. Pairing two 11000 Series gantries gave the crew the capacity to handle 16,000 lb cabinets while keeping each unit portable enough to ride a boom truck and roll on a mezzanine.
- On time and under budget. A multi-level move with no good forklift option was completed on schedule and below the budgeted cost.
Got a multi-level move, a floor-load limit, or a lift a forklift can't make?
Tell us the load, the building, the access route, and the floor ratings along the way. We'll spec a portable aluminum configuration that gets the equipment where it needs to be without overloading the structure.