Meeting differing customer demands
When there’s no such thing as a ‘standard customer’, manufacturers face the challenge of producing a variety of products, each with their own characteristics, all priced differently.
Maurizio Bragagni, export director with Italian cable manufacturer Tratos, believes this is the evolution of the modern market.
“Each customer asks for cable that meets their own particular operating requirements. We therefore need to be in a position to meet the customer’s exact needs – whether that be to meet environmental conditions, ethical considerations, or simply use.”
Asked whether crane operators are purely price-driven in respect of cable choice, Mr Bragagni suggests that cost is mostly irrelevant when compared with the cost of the machinery in which it is used. If lower quality cables are installed - which are potentially more prone to breakage and damage - then the potential loss of revenue caused by down time to change that cable when it breaks has to be factored into the original price. And in smaller ports with fewer cranes this can become a major issue.
“The people that work at these ports are experienced enough to understand this and select quality product at a competitive price. They appreciate the long term cost benefits of using quality cable. Why scrimp on something that is comparatively inexpensive?” he asks.
Today, while changing broken cables is a particularly fast operation, the main issue arises when the cable replacement also involves the repair or replacement of the joint and the termination, which is costly and time consuming.
Mr Bragagni is particularly keen to stress the safety aspect of cables: as a material that carries electrical current, any short circuit can have an unpredictable impact and potentially put lives at risk. He recalls the tragic story of a crane operator at the Port of Marseille ten years ago who was killed when a power cable snapped.
It is also crucial that the bending radius of a cable is correctly calculated, according to Mr Bragagni. Operators have to get this right to avoid stress on the cable; failure to do so could lead to a shorter-than-normal working life.
“There is no doubt that operating temperatures are key in how a cable behaves. The operating temperature needs to be kept constant, although environmental temperatures vary from latitude to latitude,” he says.
The biggest challenge comes at temperatures of -40 Celsius degrees, which is when the behaviour of cable changes its characteristics. But cable manufacturers can still come up with sustainable products even given the difficulty of the environment. Tratos, for example, claims to have sold cable to Siberia where temperatures of up to minus 50 degrees are quite common, but the cable has still worked.
