Drive retrofit and digital upgrade for Konecranes Gottwald mobile harbor crane in New Zealand

Located at Hawke Bay, on the east coast of the North Island, Napier Port has a history dating back 150 years. Today, it is a key maritime gateway in and out of New Zealand, handling over 250,000 TEU annually. To maintain this volume, the facility operates a sizable fleet of harbor equipment, including six Konecranes mobile harbor cranes. As their new wharf project has been completed and the wharf is operational, they are modernizing and redeploying their onsite equipment. They decided to upgrade the drive on one of the older Konecranes GHMK 6408 cranes to improve its performance and ensure spare parts availability.

The retrofit was a Konecranes Gottwald mobile harbor crane drive upgrade. An updated crane requires less maintenance and therefore costs less in downtime. With three of the six mobile harbor cranes on the quay now effectively the same, productivity stays high as one crane can easily replace another if there is any downtime and maintenance is easy with guaranteed spare parts support.

 

An easy way to extend crane lifetime 

 
Konecranes equipment is built to last for decades. But even the highest-quality components will eventually wear out, while the steel structure of the crane is often still in good working condition. So, a drive retrofit not only improves performance, but also replaces obsolete parts from the drive’s original equipment manufacturer (OEM) to ensure that parts are always available in the future and downtime is minimized. In addition, old parts from the retrofitted crane can be used to service other cranes in the fleet. “Properly functioning equipment is vital to ensure steady and reliable service for our customers. As we expand our operations, we are expecting higher volume, so we can’t afford much downtime,” says David Broad, General Manager Assets and Infrastructure, Napier Port. “We are pleased to report that this retrofit has improved the crane’s performance and our overall productivity – proven by remote monitoring – and has simplified maintenance with shared spare parts.”

The Konecranes mobile harbor crane drive retrofit is a turnkey solution with customizable features for specific cranes. In this case, a Konecranes Gottwald GHMK 6408 crane had its DC drives for hoisting and slewing replaced, as well as the variable braking resistor, its motor modules and control units. A new onboard computer (IPC) was also installed, with VISUMATIC 8 software, along with a new monitor, keyboard, mouse and an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS, to ensure safety in the unlikely event of a power failure) for the electrical control room. The addition of TRUCONNECT® Remote Monitoring offers digital reports on crane performance and extra technical analysis to assist in maintenance. 

 

Cost-efficient investment 
 

“The success of this retrofit highlights Konecranes’ expertise with customized retrofits, which are a cost-efficient way to improve the performance and extend the useful lifetime of any crane,” says Klaus Woeste, Regional Sales and Services Director, Oceania, Konecranes Port Services. “When their mobile harbor cranes are updated to ensure continued service, Napier Port demonstrates a strong commitment to their customers. We are proud to work with them and look forward to continuing our partnership long into the future.” Our retrofits are part of Ecolifting, Konecranes’ continuous work to decrease the carbon footprint of our customers. With a long product life cycle, retrofits and modernizations help to lower environmental impact, advance the circular economy and preserve the value of key business assets.