A road transport company participating in a logistics supply chain can operate vehicles equipped with its own handling equipment, hire handling equipment at the loading and unloading site, or leave handling operations to its principals. Own handling equipment gives the carrier a clear, albeit difficult to measure at the individual company level, competitive advantage in the market.
Among various types of handling equipment, portable cranes are of great importance. The relationships between technology and economics are particularly strong in logistics supply chains. Road vehicles operated in a distribution network are usually equipped with their own handling equipment of significant weight, which is completely useless while the vehicle is in transit. Therefore, the strategic decision of a transport company regarding the method of technically efficient and economically effective unloading of a vehicle at the place of cargo delivery is of fundamental importance. Commonly used criteria for selecting portable cranes are reduced to the crane’s lifting capacity, its manufacturer, and price. Such an approach does not ensure the best economic effect is obtained, and thus the full utilization of market advantage.
The procedure for selecting a crane should include, in addition to technical aspects, operational and economic factors such as: the location of the crane on the vehicle, the use of trailers, the supply of cargo in the company’s operational zone, average transport distance, operating and organizational costs, availability of third-party handling equipment at the unloading site, local price levels, etc.
The article presents a methodology for selecting vehicle equipment options for an individual transport company. The results of a comparative analysis are presented for cases of operating vehicles:
• without cranes – with vehicle unloading using rented equipment
• with a crane behind the driver’s cab
• with a crane mounted behind the cargo box, enabling the unloading of a trailer towed by the vehicle.
Portable cranes in logistics distribution chains
General cargo, bulk goods, and especially palletized cargo units suitable for transport in a truck’s cargo box can be handled by portable cranes mounted on the vehicle carrying the cargo. The advantage of such a solution is primarily the delivery vehicle’s ability to self-unload at the recipient’s site, with the possibility of placing the cargo in the most convenient location indicated by the customer (Fig. 1). This is a very important factor in the carrier’s competitiveness. The disadvantage is the load on the vehicle from the weight of the crane and the subframe during transport, as well as the high investment cost.
The crane can be positioned on the vehicle:
• between the driver’s cab and the box or
• behind the box, on the rear overhang.
In the second case, the crane can also unload a trailer towed by the vehicle. The choice of option cannot be based solely on preferences regarding the manufacturer and limited to an analysis of the basic technical parameters of the crane and its price. The integral transport unit of vehicle-crane-(trailer) also constitutes an economic element of the transport company, and therefore it should be considered incorrect to limit economic analysis to investment costs and depreciation.
Many years of experience in mounting portable cranes have prompted the author to attempt a technical and economic comparative analysis of the economic consequences of choosing a crane mounting variant. Some results are provided below.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 4/2003.