Heavy Transformer Assembly Systems

ABB, as a worldwide manufacturer of large power distribution transformers, selected Doerfer Company’s Omni-directional Wheellift Technology for a system that could boost their current 80 ton capacity in-floor rail system and allow them to handle a new product line of transformers weighing up to 145 tons.

CHALLENGE:

For a planned expansion to larger transformers than their current in-floor rail system could handle, ABB sought a viable alternative to upgrading their old plant to the quality needed to support air bearings.
The people at ABB’s South Boston, Virginia plant, accepted the challenge to be the first to install a self-loading Wheellift wheeled transporter that can handle their new range of transformers with their old and new manufacturing spaces that were severely compromised with uneven surfaces, room-to-room thresholds, rail tracks, expansion joints, gaps at the autoclave doors, along with being able to effortlessly negotiate congested aisles around fixed machinery locations.

SOLUTION:

Purchase wireless, low profile, electrically self-powered, all-wheeled drive transporters and several sizes of ground isolation heavy duty skids with common “tunnel spaces” that allow the transporters to drive under, lift and carry transformers to the next assembly or process location.