Just as cranes, monorails and hoists complement the work in a manufacturing or warehouse setting, the Crane Manufacturers Association of America Inc. (CMAA), the Hoist Manufacturers Institute (HMI), and the Monorail Manufacturers Association (MMA) find that lifting and moving in the same direction makes sense. Together, the three have realigned the Overhead Alliance, combining their marketing arms into one collaborative team.

While the Overhead Alliance is not new, the new collaboration will fold each of the three organizations’ marketing efforts under the Alliance. In turn, the Alliance will represent the three associations on individual programs, such as the release of new standards and other collaborative efforts. Details were featured in a recent MHI Solutions article.

“We can help promote all three groups from the standpoint of their individual goals, but we can also promote all of overhead lifting as a group,” said Laura Antenucci, marketing manager, U.S. & Canada, with MHI member Demag Cranes and Components. Antenucci serves as co-leader of the alliance.

Dustin Krauth, national sales manager with MHI member TC/American Crane Company, also co-leads the group. The Overhead Alliance also includes the vice presidents of each of the three associations and other members.

Separate Histories, Combined Vision

Each of the organizations has its own unique history and mission. CMAA traces its roots back to 1927, founded as the Electric Overhead Crane Institute. MMA was founded in 1933 and its members produce most of the patented and enclosed track underhung cranes and monorail systems. HMI was originally founded in 1917 as the Electric Hoist Manufacturer’s Association; its members produce hoisting equipment. CMAA particularly works on specifications and MMA actively works on standards committees and supports the development and certification of safety standards by the ANSI consensus methods. All three organizations work to ensure safe operation of their products.

Working collaboratively benefits all organizations, Antenucci said. “Someone may know about one of these groups but may not know that the other two exist. We hope to create awareness on what all three groups are doing and how they are helping everybody move forward in overhead lifting.”

“We want them to be able to make a confident decision about their purchases and to know that there is a focus on workplace safety. Those issues are important to them.”

Overhead Alliance to Promote Intersections of Technologies

The biggest effort will be on promoting the places where hoists, cranes, and monorails intersect and expanding the knowledge about the products, their benefits and safe operations. “When marketing was taken individually, they focused on one road. But a crane always needs a hoist,” Antenucci said.

Krauth sees opportunities to educate other MHI members, “who may not be taking advantage” of the expertise within these groups. He’d like to see more use of resources developed, so currently, a lot of emphasis is being placed on developing content for the website, overheadlifting.org. The first step has been building content for a blog and publishing a newsletter, as well as providing informational videos.

“That’s our KPI moving forward, monitoring traffic to our resources and keeping an eye on resource levels to the industry,” he said.

Knowledge and expertise about the three products—hoists, cranes, and monorails—is deep in the three industry groups. It is up to the Overhead Alliance to make sure members, end users and specifiers understand that. “That’s a big reason we have these industry groups in the first place,” Krauth said. “So that they know where to turn when they have a question.”

Currently, Krauth feels that manufacturers are not taking advantage of the skills within these groups. He’d like to see membership grow, particularly as all three segments are undergoing significant changes.

“With HMI and CMAA, the trend that I’m seeing is bigger and higher capacity,” Krauth said. “More and more, the spans are getting longer, and the capacities are getting higher as they realize they can do more.”

Automation a Focus for Overhead Alliance

Krauth also sees overhead handling technologies as complementary to automation solutions. “It’s important that we get the word out that this is the product for automation.”

No matter which of the three associations she’s talking about, Antenucci also sees opportunities to talk about automation. That’s a relatively new option in overhead lifting, which hasn’t typically been “the most high-tech product out there,” she said. “There are more smart features coming out. It’s something important for anyone in the industry to watch for, the technological side of overhead lifting. It’s really going to help in the future.”

Automation can play a significant role in safety as well as productivity, Antenucci believes.

“I hope that we are really able to turn it up a notch,” Antenucci said. “We’ve been really trying to get content out there and feed the industry. To be the main marketing for these three groups, we can really start to promote overhead lifting as a whole.”

To learn more, visit mhi.org/overhead-alliance.