Industry stalwart celebrates 53 years in the business

From humble beginnings with American Monorail, manufacturer of patented track under-running cranes and monorails in Cleveland, to Euclid Crane (purchased by Kranco), Morgan Engineering, to Konecranes, and Ace World Companies, Warriner finally set up his own company called Flow-in-Motion, before returning to the Foley bothers, covering the Florida region for Foley Material Handling.

“In 2015, Dale Foley told me he wanted to step back and asked me to take the position as director of business development. I thought about it, accepted his offer of a five-year contract, sold Flow-In-Motion to Rotator Products, a Canadian crane accessories distributor and joined Foley Material Handling a third time and moved to Virginia,” said Warriner.

“In March 2021, I stepped back to take a position as a senior regional manager with a small territory. I took the Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast as a territory because I didn’t want to travel covering a larger territory as I had before. I have enjoyed a great deal of success in that area with the shipbuilders and related industry. Rick Foley asked me if I would take on the state of Florida. It has always been a poor performing area for us and we feel it represents a much higher potential than we have been experiencing. Ever on the lookout for challenges, I decided it would be fun to see what I could do with it.”

Warriner says if there is one major difference within the industry today, from when he started to now, it would be the ‘vast disconnect between those who must live with decisions and those who make them on a short-term, low price basis’.

“The major companies such as the steel companies had engineers that were crane experts. In addition, the folks having to live with the decisions were involved in the process. Companies had stringent specifications and purchased cranes based on value and longevity. The experts died or retired and weren’t replaced. Today there is a significant disconnect between purchasing and the folks that have to live with their decisions. Many of todays’ purchases are made solely on price with a minimal specification. The specified design criteria used to be based on a 20-plus years life expectancy. Today, most decisions are made based on a five-year life expectancy as the belief is they process will have changed in five years and the needs will be different,” he added.

He said the best part about the job is developing the young sales staff and witnessing their progress and the most challenging is properly defining usage and duty cycle rating.

“I did a market analysis in 1979. At that time there were about 20 crane manufacturers. In the 1980’s some of the crane companies started marketing kits of crane hoists, end truck machinery and controls to local fabricators. As a result, there are over 1,000. Also, about the same time, Several European manufacturers entered the US market,” said Warriner.

“Ever since European manufacturers came into the US about 25 years ago, there has been a conflict between ISO ratings and CMAA ratings. Unlike DIN Standards, CMAA is not code. Therefore, application of the specification is a matter of interpretation.”

In terms of most frequently asked questions Warriner gets asked he says there are two trends; One is the escalating increase in interest for advancing automation for overhead cranes. The second is the trend of monitoring equipment, creating a historical system and establishing thresholds for alerting the maintenance staff of a facility regarding the need for preventative maintenance steps such as lubrication or oil changes.

Additionally, these systems forecast imminent failure of bearings, reducers and motors and scheduling repair or replacement. This is in lieu of “run to failure mode” and dealing with the collateral damage and interference with operations.

As automation becomes more practical as technology is developed, demand and ease of cost justification increases.

“I see the industry continuing to expand at a modest rate but the benefits of new technology and Industry 4.0 is sustaining the industry. For years conveyorization has been absorbing market share from the crane industry because it lent itself greater to automation. The development of technology allowing cranes to be automated has increased the market potential for the industry but we need to do more in terms of Health & Safety at work due to the number of crane accidents due to untrained operators,” added Warriner.

“While the use of technological communication becomes a greater part of the business, there is nothing better than face to face where body language and understanding or human behaviour may be achieved.”