Human life and its safety are of utmost importance to all major AWP manufacturers. That is why we all are in the business of making equipment that allow people to work safely at heights.

  Across the equipment industry technology evolution is taking place with every passing year. Concern on designing machines that give optimum performance yet environmentally friendly is the need of the hour. Most importantly the machines need to be safe to operate and maintain. Considering the same all world-class manufacturers are engaged in developing and inducting technologies that make their machines safer to operate. “We at Haulotte are also continuously working in similar lines,” says Souma Ray, Director, Haulotte India Pvt Ltd.

For many years now there have been concerns amongst the users of AWPs of instances wherein lives have been lost due to entrapment situation when working at heights. There was a demand to find a solution to find a suitable way to avoid such fatalities.

Accordingly most of the major manufacturers came out with their designs as a solution to this requirement.

Positive impacts
Speaking about the positive impacts of machines that provide safety at height, Ray says, “Human life and its safety are of utmost importance to all major AWP manufacturers. That is why we all are in the business of making equipment that allow people to work safely at heights. Entrapment was a major concern especially in the infra project sector and with the solutions in place now it’s in the hands of the users to opt for them.”

Latest innovation
Haulotte is 134 years old but for last 30 years is in to powered access equipment manufacturing. Ray says, “We incorporate new technology which is better for environment and industry and adapt very fast to changes. For safety we introduced our Activ Shield Bar.  This is a secondary guard for anti-entrapment situation and is patented too by Haulotte, launched in 2014. The bar is attached on top of the control box on the platform and identifies the condition of entrapment.  In an entrapment situation, the machine stops moving up or ahead. After the machine stops we can only reverse or go down to come out of the entrapment situation. Once this situation is averted, we can start using immediately by just resetting the machine by press of a button present in the platform. Our Activ Shield Bar can be ordered as an option with any new machine and also the same can be retrofitted to our older boom lifts,” explains Ray.

The other additional change Haulotte has introduced is a newer engine called as Variable Speed Engine like KUBOTA from Japan which are silent and fuel efficient as part of model upgradation of existing machines like in its 16 metres and 20 metres Articulated Booms. A diagnostic tool too has been introduced called as Haulotte Diag, which can be used for fault diagnostics for all variants.

“We can pinpoint with Haulotte Diag, the location of the problem of the machine by which the user themselves can identify the problem. Pictorial description of the problem is also given. Newer models of our products will also have an Active Screen which shall capture the log of the usage of the machines, date wise and time wise. This will be very beneficial to the rental companies. We are also moving on to modular technology for various components in our booms like the platform, the side covers, with which only the individual parts can be changed which are damaged than the entire machine,” concludes Ray.