MHI Solutions Improving Supply Chain Performance
CMAA responded to industry needs for standards for jib cranes, like Gorbel’s half ton base‑mounted version. Photo provided by Gorbel
Safety is at the core of the work of the Crane Manufacturers Association of America (CMAA). However, this committee of “friendly competitors” does not merely replicate the work of federal regulators but rather sees its role as enhancing when it comes to understanding the nuances of overhead traveling cranes and gantry cranes.
While OSHA and ANSI focus on creating safety standards, CMAA’s standards help provide design elements, said Molly Wood, president of CMAA and engineering manager for MHI member Ace Industries. “It looks at allowable stresses and fatigue limits for cranes.”
The role is specific to the crane world, something that steel standards and machinist handbooks don’t delve into, Wood said. “Cranes are a unique entity: structural, mechanical and electrical that work in tandem.”
CMAA focuses its work on writing design specs, with some 50 engineering and technical specs to its credit. Consequently, most of its meetings are spent in engineering breakouts, reviewing, revising and improving specs to account for new features, Wood said.
“We’re a growing, healthy organization,” said Jeff McNeill, vice president of CMAA and VP of marketing and innovation for MHI member Gorbel. “There’s been a lot of interest in overhead cranes. We create standards for products that outline design and safety and publish standards so that people have something to help them define what is going to be acceptable and safe products to buy.”
While keeping workers safe is at the core of the effort, the fact that cranes are often near and lifting over expensive warehouse equipment brings an extra level of concern in warehouses, McNeill said.
New standards are released about every five years and another round is set to be issued in the fall of 2025. Currently, the revisions are in process, with a focus on ensuring that new crane features are accounted for. CMAA members will receive the documents for review in spring.
“It’s a long process,” McNeill said.
Not everything made it into the 2025 revisions and work begins soon on those for the next cycle, Wood said. New features tend to focus on electrical, with the option for additional features. “With structure, how you put steel together is not wildly different from one year to the next.”
Innovations on the electrical side tend to be “fairly incremental,” McNeill said. “It’s tweaks, modifications, some added content. The underlying technology doesn’t change so quickly that we’re playing a constant catch‑up game.”
Still, there is plenty of work to do in responding to industry questions about these types of cranes. Jib cranes, for instance, have been around for a while, but lacked standards. CMAA has created them. “We finally reached the point where enough people were asking,” McNeill said.
CMAA has been around since 1927, when it was founded as the Electric Overhead Crane Institute. It adopted the CMAA name in 1955. Over the years, there haven’t been dramatic changes in the overarching technology of this type of crane. “What does change a lot is how member companies apply the technology,” McNeill said. “There’s a lot of innovation in that. In our business, the number of really unique solutions that we can come up with using our products to solve very specific applications is amazing.”