Making our Technology Leadership Sustainable Together
We are a global technology and innovation leader in our industry. Demag Cranes aims to consolidate and expand this position systematically. For us, future orientated research and development work is the broad basis from which to achieve our goal.
As a global company with an absolute customer focus, we are putting our research and development efforts on an increasingly international footing. Our cross-border teamwork in financial year 2009/2010, for example, achieved another success with the first Sino-German patent. But innovation leadership brings with it a responsibility for sustainability. In Port Technology, we are setting trends with our green product range, benefiting both the environment and our Company.
Near-silent, emission-free AGVs: thanks to our capable development team.
Pioneering handling technology: the hybrid drive for Harbour Cranes was designed and developed in-house.
Automated Guided Vehicles
The high-performance batteries on board a Gottwald Battery AGV provide enough electricity to keep it operating for a full twelve hours – with zero exhaust gas emissions.
Position as Global Technology and Innovation Leader Further Strengthened
Our vision “We aim to be the first choice in our markets” is highly ambitious, but not unattainable. Today we are already setting international standards with continuous improvements and new developments in crane and port technology. More than 1,000 patents for our two brands, Demag and Gottwald, underline the Group’s great innovative strength. With new and improved products and services, Demag Cranes intends to further increase its customers’ productivity and significantly reduce their operating costs, with sustainability playing a key role.
Utilising Local Skills in a Global Context
Our aim to be the technology and innovation leader in our industry can only be achieved through outstanding research and development (R&D). With a view to achieving best-possible customer focus, we have put our R&D efforts on an increasingly international footing in recent years, boosting the foreign proportion of our development efforts from less than ten percent to currently around 30 percent. In the growth markets of India, China and South Africa, which are so important to us, we have set up teams of international development engineers who are focused on the market and customer requirements of their respective region. In China, we recently filed the first Sino-German patent for a rope hoist in the mid-segment product range. This is a major success, achieved through international teamwork with a clear focus on the growth markets.
New in the “Green Range” Product Line: Hybrid Drives for Mobile Harbour Cranes
The use of hybrid drives in cars is now established. Since March 2010, customers of Demag Cranes have also been able to benefit from their proven economic and ecological advantages. At the world’s leading trade fair for port technology, TOC Europe in Valencia, Spain, our Company presented the first hybrid drive for electric-powered Mobile Harbour Cranes. In this system, we use a modern diesel generator in conjunction with new brake resistors and electric short-term energy storage devices. When the load is lowered, energy is recovered via the braking operation, stored in high-performance capacitors and then reused. As a result, fuel consumption is cut by a two-digit percentage figure and, at the same time, exhaust and noise emissions are significantly reduced. Energy-efficient and therefore eco-friendly drives also result in advantages in the award of terminal concession contracts. Our Company will not only incorporate this forward-looking technology in new cranes, but will also offer corresponding retrofit packages. Our engineering achievement has already been honoured: we have been awarded a prize for our innovative technology by the International Bulk Journal (IBJ), a leading trade journal for the maritime bulk handling industry, in the Innovative Technology (Cargo Handling) category as part of that journal's "IBJ Awards 2010".
Teamwork with the Customer: Innovation Lead in Process Cranes
Aircraft manufacture requires extreme precision. For years, we have been working closely with our customer Airbus to meet the extreme demands posed in production during the lifting and moving of heavy and sensitive aircraft components. In our latest joint project, we are supplying a 16-crane Process Crane system for the manufacture of wings for the new Airbus 350 in Wales. The application solution, which we developed together with the customer, for the first time allows assembly work to be carried out on wings and components held in a horizontal position and moved by cranes. The particular design of this crane application ensures extremely precise alignment of the components and eliminates undesired load sway. This is a major success made possible by intensive teamwork between the customer and us. Such tailored and highly innovative application solutions like the one at Airbus are based on many years of confidence and cooperation. Our activities always start with customer needs. This is our credo in the integrated Demag Cranes Group.
Funded Innovations with a Focus on Sustainability: Battery Drives To Replace Diesel Engines
Demag Cranes developed fully automated container transport vehicles (Automated Guided Vehicles, AGVs) around 20 years ago. Over the years, these software-controlled vehicles have been continually improved, with efforts focused on low fuel consumption, low weight at maximum load capacity, high cost efficiency and environmental friendliness. Currently, Demag Cranes is working with partners on the development of battery-powered AGVs, i. e. replacing the diesel-electric drive with a battery drive system, which would eliminate emissions and significantly reduce noise. The joint goal with the new system is not only to make a major contribution to sustainable environmental protection in near-city port terminals. Rather, the project is aimed at creating an efficient and, therefore, resource-friendly solution that can also be applied to further drive trains in heavy-duty industrial vehicles. Following a successful test phase we will shortly, in close cooperation with our long-standing customer HHLA, be putting the first battery-powered, emission-free prototype AGVs into operation at the world’s most advanced container terminal in Hamburg-Altenwerder. The focus will be on intensively trialling the vehicles under real operating conditions and on building and operating the necessary battery changing station. The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) is supporting the development work with funding of EUR 1.2 million under the National Development Plan for Electric Mobility.
