Mastering technical challenges is nothing unusual in a highly complex field of activity such as the cleanroom industry. And when it comes to special requirements in the field of crane and conveyor systems, the specialists at Altmann are hard to keep calm. Even the most unusual special requests from customers are transformed into functioning solutions. The Albaching-based company is widely known for this.
However, the "case" at hand pushed the project participants to their limits at times. In fact, it was not the technical requirements that made the "old men" sweat and raised their blood pressure. Rather, it was difficulties in the field of interdisciplinary communication, planning coordination with other trades and project management by the client.
Here is a brief outline: Altmann was involved in the project in summer 2022. At this point, the 60 x 30 meter hall was already standing and was, roughly speaking, finished. The entire technical building equipment had been completed, which meant that all the filter systems, cooling units, electrification, air conditioning units, fire protection, ceiling lights, media supply and everything else needed in a cleanroom hall of this size had already been planned and partially installed.
Everything was neatly concealed behind recessed ceilings and wall cladding, and even the sockets had already been planned. What was still missing were the ten (!) special crane systems that needed to be configured differently. And for obvious structural reasons, these required a solid steel support structure to be installed behind the preassembled wall cladding.
Tough nut to crack caused a headache
"Peanuts!" thought the experienced and stress-tested project planners at Altmann. Until they heard that the existing planning could no longer be changed. There had been a short-term increase in the team's pulse, according to rumors in Albaching. However, the Bavarians did not allow themselves to be put on the spot.
They immediately set to work calculating and planning the ten different supporting structures in detail and cracking the tough nut that was presented to them.
Here is a brief summary of what was ultimately successfully installed:
The total of ten crane systems include
- 2 highly complex cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling cranes, each with a lifting capacity of 8 tonnes and a span of 11.48 metres, with synchronized tandem operation of two cranes and four hoists and semi-
automatic positioning;
- 1 highly complex cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 2 tons and a span of 5.9 meters as well as pendulum damping and semi-automatic positioning;
- 1 cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 6 tons and a span of 14.6 meters;
- 1 cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 10 tons and a span of 14.5 meters;
- 1 cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 6 tons and a span of 6.9 meters;
- 1 cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 6 tons and a span of 5.5 meters;
- 1 standard single-girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 2 tons and a span of 6.1 meters;
- 2 cleanroom monorails, each with a load capacity of 750 kg and a track length of 5 meters.
The entire steel structure required for this has a total mass of 110 tons. This list alone makes it immediately clear that this was a major project that was completed to the customer's complete satisfaction in just one year. The Altmann experts have yet to achieve this.
Another challenge was that these systems had to be installed in several cleanrooms of different sizes that had already been completed. And since the client also changed the prioritization, i.e. the order of the desired installation, several times, the supplier Altmann had to react extremely flexibly. This was a challenging task, not least for the fitters.
In fact, "some really wild things had to be planned in" and in some cases "the limits of feasibility" were reached. After all, some of the existing systems had to be dismantled at short notice in order to install the crane in question and then rebuild the existing systems. It's easy to imagine what this did to the project costs.
If you then add to this the often disruptive flow of information across countless trades and the complexity of such project management, you can imagine what happened in the teams on site as well as in the planning team at Altmann in Albaching: constant time pressure, extremely high workloads for the fitters and the resulting exhaustion. And all this in times of an acute shortage of skilled workers... A development that the Altmann management is currently noticing more and more in projects: nothing is fixed except the deadline. The technology is developed far away from the project, collisions have to be rescheduled and this leads to high follow-up costs and delays as well as frustration for employees who have been trained and "built up" over many years.
However, after a good year from the start of planning, the nut was successfully cracked and the project was completed in summer 2023. Looking back, Managing Director Achim Altmann emphasizes in his typical Bavarian-positive manner: "The good personal contacts on the construction site and in the project team as well as the increasingly better cooperation with the planners and the executing trades over the course of the project were the ray of hope that encouraged us again and again despite the time pressure and changing conditions. It gave us the feeling that everyone was pulling in the same direction."
Picture 1: 2 Cleanroom monorails with a load capacity of 750 kg each and a track length of 5 meters
Picture 2: 2 Highly complex cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling cranes, each with a lifting capacity of 8 tonnes and a span of 11.48 metres, with synchronized tandem operation of two cranes and four hoists and semi-automatic positioning
Picture 3: Cleanroom single-girder overhead travelling crane with a load capacity of 6 tons and a span of 6.9 meters
