Minimizing Turnaround Time at Imperial Power

The speed at which turnaround maintenance at public utility companies takes place is of huge economic and public importance. Newkirk Electric, and by extension, Green Pin^® distributor in the Midwest of the United States ASC Industries, were faced with the challenge of minimizing the outage resulting from maintenance operations. They were hired to move seven transformers, each weighing about 220 t (480.000 lbs), in a high power yard at Imperial Power in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Using the traditional Jack & Slide method – whereby the transformers are placed on hardwood timbers, sliding the transformers on beams into place and then lifting them back to the ground – an 18 day outage would be expected.

To reduce the outage days, however, Newkirk Electric planned to move all seven transformers in six days by utilizing the Pick & Carry method with ASC Industries’ spreader beams and Twin Path High-performance round slings attached to the 1750 boom crawler with 138 inch of boom and 20 parts of load line. To complete the sling, four 150 t and four 75 t Green Pin^® Sling Shackles BN and eight 85 t Green Pin^® Super Bow Shackles BN were used. The smaller size and weight of Green Pin^® Super Shackles (with an equal working load limit when compared to non-Super products) were a key benefit for choosing them as there was limited space for an attachment point to the load. The result: the shutdown of the power yard lasted only six days which meant a reduction in outage time of 12 days!