Tata Steel is one of the world's most geographically diversified steel producers, with operations in 26 countries and commercial offices in over 35 countries. Here in the UK the company is enhancing its operations at its steel stockholding centre, Wednesbury and its production facility, Port Talbot.

Six of the Konecranes ordered are for Wednesbury. All are 25t SMARTON (SMTD) models of which 5 will operate with a span of 17.4m and the 6th has a span of 23.2m. The cranes are variously designed to use Tata's existing coil tongs, vacuum beams and magnet lifting accessories.

The Port Talbot crane is an SMD with 125t capacity operating with a span of 17.83mt. It will be deployed on the installation and maintenance of the large mill motors required in the production facility.

The SMT for all Wednesbury cranes stands for SMT SMARTON®, which is an intelligent, yet easy-to-use Human Interface to Machine (HIM) system keeping the user continuously up to date on not only the weight of the load but also its position relative to the available workspace. In addition, the crane monitors its own condition and recommends when and what kind of inspection or preventive maintenance should be performed. This way, the customer can better plan and minimize maintenance shutdowns, thereby maximizing uptime and saving costs. All Wdenesbury cranes will also have Konecranes TRUCONNECT Remote Monitoring and Reporting service where the cranes performance is being continuously monitored remotely and should anything arise then a Konecranes engineer can automatically be despatched to site, without any request or call from the client.

All cranes for Tata Steel will also have Konecranes DynAHoist and DynAC (travel and traverse) closed loop inverter variable speed control systems, the Wednesbury cranes also have Konecranes Remox (HIM) radio control, overload protection and true vertical lift with Konecranes unique anti-sway system to ensure load stability at all times and along with other features such as main hoist brake slip and brake opening supervision the client is getting the most up to date crane technology available to-day. The Port Talbot crane, being an SMD model (Spacemaker) is being designed to take account of the operating standards at Port Talbot and to utilize their in house radio control system.

The cranes will be manufactured at Konecranes UK's East Kilbride factory and delivery for Wednesbury is planned for October and Port Talbot November.