Maritime transport are the 50% of the Spanish exports and up to the 80% of the 80% of imports. This implies a high quantity of commodities with the necessary logistics at the loading docks and the coordination with the ships.

For the loading and unloading of containers is required the lashing and unlashing (of the anchors when they are stacked), and, in many cases, these tasks pose huge risks due to the machinery used and the size of the loads.

Personnel Transport in Lashing Cages 

In the terminals, the use of lashing cages coupled to the spreader of a container crane is very common. Several people, from the cages, carry out a delicate work of unhooking the containers from the ships, while a stevedore operates the crane from above.

Risks

With such dimensions and height, the coordination and safety are the fundamental pillars. In fact, the procedure is quite manual and rudimentary, and the communication is simply done via walkie talkies. For this reason, stevedores and port authorities demand greater security in this type of operations.

Usually the crane operator has no vision of the workers in the cages under the crane cabin itself, and at that high even if he has the angle of view, he couldn’t see what is happening clearly or monitor all workers.

It is very common for the cages and their workers to be suspended over the sea and at great heights/high altitudes. Coordination is essential.

Remote control in seaports

A new innovation that improves security and coordination is the use of industrial remote control.

Each worker in the cage would have a transmitter. All transmitters communicate with his receiver, which will be connected to the crane’s PLC. The operator of crane will only be able to move it if each one of the workers has confirmed with his transmitter that everything is going well.

Also, the transmitters have a E-Stop button, which means that in an emergency situation, a signal is sent to the crane in a matter of milliseconds, and it begins to stop.

With our remote control systems you can achieve a range up to 300 meters in these demanding environments. In addition, the E-stop function meet with the highest safety certifications on the market, reaching the SIL3 PLe level.

The transmitters and receivers are in constant communication in both directions, so the application can always be stopped immediately if necessary . In addition, the information of the status of the connection show up on the screen.