January 29, 2021 6 min read
When the Danish manufacturer of lifting and crane accessories BSV Krantilbehør wanted to lift its business, it looked to Strenx® steel. The company is now building custom products that are stronger yet lighter, take more payload and last longer – all while they build a better brand image and extend their global market reach.
Flemming Jensen and Allan Ricardy, the owners of BSV Krantilbehør in Denmark, never shy away from new technology that can improve their crane accessories and help them expand business beyond the borders of their small country. The company export 65% of its products to markets abroad.
“We’ve been in the market for 60 years now, and it has always been important for us to keep up with new technology and to always use the right materials. To ensure our high quality for both our standard products and our custom products, it’s been a natural choice for us to use Strenx® steel in our production,” says Jensen, the company’s CEO.
They aim to constantly improve production processes by introducing automation, digitalization and process optimization. And they also search for the best steels on the market so they can build lifting and crane accessories that are stronger than mild or conventional steels yet allow them to build lighter end products using less steel. This is one reason why they turned to Strenx® high-strength structural steel.
"When BSV Krantilbehør changed the design of its equipment to leverage the properties of Strenx® steel, it gained some major benefits."
BSV Krantilbehør produces crane forks, crane grabs, mechanical clamps, electro-hydraulic grabs and rotators. All products from BSV, marked with My Inner Strenx® consists of minimum 60% of Strenx® steel. They recently switched from S355 steel with a yield strength of 355 MPa (51 ksi) to Strenx® 700E in lifting booms.
Steel grades in the Strenx® 700 product group have a minimum yield strength of 650-700 MPa (94-101 ksi) depending on thickness. These steels can be stressed much higher than an S355 steel. This means that thinner dimensions can be used at the same load levels, or the load level can be higher if the same dimensions are used. Either way, a higher yield strength will improve both production and performance.
These higher grades of Strenx® steel enable manufacturers like BSV Krantilbehør to reduce the sheet thickness and use less steel, providing cost reductions in both material and processing costs. Using thinner steel gauges in the workshop also helps to cut the costs of cutting and welding. For example, welders can reduce the volumes of deposited weld material during welding and thus decrease the weld consumables and weld times.
When BSV Krantilbehør changed the design of its equipment to leverage the properties of Strenx® steel, it gained some major benefits.
“The design changes made it easier and cheaper to produce,” Jensen says.
Strenx® steel also comes with guarantees, including tight thickness tolerances, tight flatness tolerances and bending guarantees. This way, fabricators can get consistently optimal workshop performance.
Find out what upgrading to Strenx® can do for your products and your business.
The company is in the process of certifying most of its crane accessories and attachments under the My Inner Strenx® program. They believe that the My Inner Strenx® decal on their attachments proves to customers that they are getting a high-value product with a longer service life than comparable products. They are also looking forward to the prioritized technical and marketing support that program membership brings.
So, what are some other benefits of membership for BSV Krantilbehør?
“We are proud to be a part of the SSAB world and a My Inner Strenx® member,” says Jasna Lagumdzija from sales and marketing at BSV. ”It gives us an even higher credibility towards our customers regarding quality and sustainability, as well as the possibility to use this membership for co-branding our quality products.”
Flemming Jensen adds: “It’s that focus on the right strong material combined with our own employees’ experience and expertise that has helped us to lift both the company and our brand.”
BSV’s long-standing customers appreciate what they get from the company, too. Morten Nørgaard, VP of HawkeyePedershaab Concrete Technologies, says, “We’ve been a customer of BSV’s for over 30 years. We develop high-quality, specially designed lifting equipment in close collaboration with BSV for concrete pipes and well systems, and we have not had a single product claim on BSV’s equipment during that entire period.”
Strenx® performance steel can make your products stronger, lighter, safer, more competitive and more sustainable. We call it performance steel, because it adds performance beyond ordinary structural steel.
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