Date: 5/11/2020
Previous Blog: OLI App Initial Review
Wolverine Crane & Service’s Experience with the OLI App
As more teams in the field add R&M’s OLI app to their hoist’s data monitor, we’re excited to hear feedback on the app’s performance and its uses across our industry. The Overhead Lifting Information (OLI) app takes real-time data from your hoist and distills it into easily read diagrams and charts on your iOS or Android device.
After our conversation with the Hoosier Crane team, we spoke with a service manager at Wolverine Crane & Service about his first impressions of the app and how they’ve been using it at their site and with their customers.
Easily View Data Between Service Appointments
Wolverine installed OLI in December 2019, and their service manager noted that this format simplifies the technical terms of the components and percentages that calculate the Designed Working Period (DWP) of the hoist.
“This takes a hundred parameters of information and shows us the critical and important items to monitor,” he said. For his customers, easy access to hoist data means that they don’t have to wait for the Wolverine service team to come out for their periodic inspections to assess their hoist’s performance and status.
Without OLI, facility managers would have to shut down crane operations and physically open the panel on the hoist to get the data from the HoistMonitor. Now, they don’t have to sacrifice productive time to see important data like the number of starts or the average weight of the loads lifted.
For Wolverine’s customers who are concerned about the usage, the service team can get a snapshot and share it with them. Service technicians can help immediately relay data findings to facility managers. That data has always been available for the managers, but now it’s no longer hidden or difficult to access.
Data Forensics and Preventative Maintenance
Not only does OLI give real-time information about what’s occurring with a hoist, it keeps a data log for the entire lifecycle of the hoist. Whether it’s for preventative maintenance or investigating a part failure, service technicians can easily pull up the hoist’s data from the floor to show the customer exactly what happened.
“We call it data forensics," said their service manager. “We can identify the DWP of each component in a preventative maintenance sense. The information is downloadable, and its format helps us connect the dots between over-usage, misuse or regular use.” In that way, this type of data reporting helps facility managers keep safety, efficiency and best practices at the forefront of their daily operations.
Improving Communication Across Roles
The ease of use benefits Wolverine's service technicians, but it also creates a level playing field for everyone to understand the data: maintenance team leaders, facility managers, pendant and radio controllers can immediately know the hoist loads and key conditions.
“It’s a case of a picture being worth a thousand words,” their service manager told us. “It gives real-time information about what’s occurring with that crane, and what happened in the past. Whether we’re there for preventative maintenance or because a part broke down, we can get into the HoistMonitor from the floor to show them exactly what happened.”
Enabling Success and Data Clarity
Whether you work in a one-crane shop or a large facility with multiple cranes, the app makes it easy to identify each hoist’s critical information. Want to know more about incorporating OLI into your crane operations? Contact us online or give us a call at 800-955-9967.