Plazar Manutention supplies 9 overhead cranes to support machine-tool production at Jouanel

Plazar Manutention, an industrial lifting specialist and partner of lifting-equipment manufacturer Verlinde in the Centre region, has designed and commissioned 9 overhead travelling cranes for its long-standing customer. The installer is also in charge of maintaining the customer's fleet of lifting equipment, a total of 30 cranes, including their preventive maintenance.

Plazar Manutention helps its customers design and choose handling solutions for loads ranging from 60 to 80,000 kg. It carries out feasibility studies for installing new equipment, for modernizing and upgrading existing equipment, and also handles their maintenance.

The installer's goal is to ensure the availability and upkeep of the lifting and handling equipment across their entire life cycle. Since its founding in 2001, Plazar Manutention has chosen Verlinde as its supplier of new equipment.

Ever since it was founded, Plazar Manutention has handled the maintenance of the lifting equipment of Jouanel, a French manufacturer of machine tools and tooling for the fine sheet metal industry, based in Indre-et-Loire. When Jouanel decided to build an extension to its existing buildings to support its growing production, it naturally consulted Plazar Manutention.

Plazar Manutention was involved in the project design from the very outset: it recommended installing overhead cranes instead of the non-motorized gantry cranes originally envisaged, for ergonomic reasons.

What swayed Jouanel was the pace at which design, manufacture and start-up could be completed: back in 2021, it took Plazar Manutention a mere 3 months to fulfil the order for all 9 cranes. «We bid on the tender issued by Finhal Group, Jouanel's parent, and won it thanks to our responsiveness and service quality at a competitive rate. Being located close by helped too,» explained Mr. Jean-François Desveaux, who manages Plazar Manutention. This choice underlines Jouanel's commitment to championing French industrial expertise and staying rooted locally.

A major accomplishment

Jouanel's new facility spans 4 separate halls, where the 9 overhead cranes move metal bars and shift machine tools around. Supplied with VERLINDE EUROBLOC electric wire rope hoists rated for 800 to 80,000 kg, these units were engineered around the features industrial customers ask for most, keeping things essential. As standard they carry a load limiter, lift limit switch, 2 steering speeds and an IP55 electrical enclosure. Having already relied on Verlinde gear in its older production buildings, Jouanel knew it could count on its strength and dependability.

Since going into service, the equipment in the new extension has run without a hitch, to Jouanel's full satisfaction. Mr. Emmanuel Halle, the company's Director, sums it up: «Three things drove our choice of Plazar: the cranes are built in Touraine, we've relied on Verlinde gear trouble-free since 1986, and Plazar's own service and responsiveness. Here's to continued success for the Plazar-Verlinde partnership.