WW Cannon was approached to provide a way to reduce the labor and increase the safety of loading two machines used for surfacing and shaping stone counter tops.

At the time our customer was utilizing a fork truck in conjunction with four to five men to load the machines.  This was a very tricky and labor intensive operation. The stone slab was carried to the machine in the vertical position using a fork truck. They then placed the bottom edge on the machine in its approximate needed position and then slowly lowered the stone slab onto the machine with two men on either end of the slab guiding  it into position.

WW Cannon offered them two solutions:

The first was an overhead bridge crane with coverage for the entire shop that utilized a tilting vacuum lifter. The idea here was the customer could load and unload all their machines utilizing the crane as well as transporting the stone from machine to machine. This approach proved to be too costly for the customer.

The second approach was to use a free standing jib crane to service the two machines the customer was primarily concerned with again utilizing a vacuum lifter for handling and tilting the stone slabs.

This second approach fit the customers budget streamlined the stone handling process by reducing the number of laborers required to load the stone onto the machine from four down to two, as well as providing a quick and safe way to rotate the load from the vertical position to the horizontal position.  This solution also allowed them to accurately spot the load on the machine. All in all reducing labor cost while increasing productivity and safety.

 Contact us at 800.442.3061 for additional information.