SC&RA recognizes Job of the Year award winners

This year’s SC&RA Job of the Year competitions featured 28 exceptionally strong entries—15 rigging jobs and 13 hauling jobs. The seven winning companies were announced at the Annual Conference Closing Night Awards and Recognition Dinner in Carlsbad, California on Saturday, April 14.

Rigging

The Rigging Job of the Year competition saluted four rigging projects that demonstrated how SC&RA members successfully meet professional challenges encountered in rigging. The focus of each of the winners was on ingenuity, hard word and a concern for safety:

• Over $2 million: Barnhart Crane & Rigging, Memphis, Tenn., engineered and built equipment to lift transport and set the 340 vault (originally a basement for a larger building) and 309 reactor (a highly radioactive component that had to be removed concurrently with its shielding structure as one large monolith) from the Washington Closure Hanford site in Washington to the Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility.
• $750,000 to $2 million: Transdata Movimentacao De Cargas Complexas, Sao Paulo, Brazil, used 1,000 and 500-ton hydraulic cranes to place two giant rolling-mill pieces measuring 48 feet by 18 feet 4 inches by 7 feet 3 inches and weighing 325 tons onto their bases. Companies traditionally use gantry cranes for erections of this type, but Transdata’s team found a more efficient way, which dramatically reduced the time and costs of the operation.
• $150,000 to $750,000: Fagioli, Inc., Opera, Milan, Italy, installed connecting beams to the tallest building in Italy by means of a tower-lift and strand jacking system with a lowering operation inside the tower. The 50-story building towered 662 feet and was inspired by Brancusi’s Endless Column, a metaphor for a building stretching limitlessly towards the sky.
• Under $150,000: Barnhart Crane & Rigging, Memphis, Tenn., removed and replaced a damaged blade of a 2.5-megawatt Clipper C-96 wind turbine generator, using a craneless single blade solution. The additional weight posed by ice build-up on the blade posed a challenge that Banhart met by employing a “steam genie” to melt the ice and perform the exchange.

Hauling

The Hauling Jobs of the Year competition gave richly deserved recognition to three hauling projects that epitomized how SC&RA members successfully meet successfully meet professional challenges encountered in hauling. The following winners were recognized for shipment routing, planning, overcoming physical elements, safety considerations and execution:

• Moving (using specialized equipment, such as self-propelled transporters, dollies and crawler assemblies): Tradelossa, Mexico City, Mexico, performed over 1,000 moves—including specialized, oversize and super loads—from different origins to Etileno XXI, the biggest Oil & Gas Project to date in Latin America. The largest piece moved for the project was a reactor weighing 880 tons and measuring approximately 302 feet long and 20 feet wide.
• Over 160,000 pounds (net): Barnhart Crane & Rigging, Memphis, Tenn., transported a secondary reformer 1,605 miles from Tulsa, Okla. to Lima, Ohio via barge and over-the-road trucking. The reformer dimensions were 73 feet 1 inch by 17 feet 8 inches by 18 feet 4 inches with a weight of 425,000 pounds. The transporter was 300 feet 1 inch by 24 feet 4 inches by 18 feet 4 inches with a weight of 885,000 pounds.
• Under 160,000 pounds (net): Precision Specialized Division, Inc., Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada, moved six large smoothing reactors from Toronto, Ontario, Canada to four locations in Central Alberta, Canada via alternative routing because of the load size. The reactors measured 15 feet by 15 feet 4 inches by 16 feet 6 inches with a net weight of 110,000 pounds. The loaded dimensions were 109 feet by 15 feet 4 inches by 18 feet 6 inches.

Look for details about Job of the Year Winners in SC&RA’s official magazines, American Cranes & Transport and International Cranes and Specialized Transport.