Actio Employee's "Crane Wire Replacement Jig" Wins Silver Prize at FY2025 Construction Load-Handling Vehicle Safety Technology Association "Invention Award"!!

Actio Co., Ltd. (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Nihonbashi, Tokyo; President and COO: Naoto Onuma; hereinafter referred to as Actio), a comprehensive construction machinery rental company, is pleased to announce that its employee-designed "Crane Wire Replacement Jig" has won the Silver Prize at the FY2025 Invention Award sponsored by the Public Interest Incorporated Foundation of Construction Load-Handling Vehicle Safety Technology Association (hereinafter referred to as KNK).

Cranes used at construction sites require regular wire replacement to maintain safe operation. This replacement work is labor-intensive and time-consuming. In particular, the process of removing crane wires previously required two people, a crane operator and a wire pulling worker, taking approximately 28 minutes per replacement. With the introduction of the newly developed jig, this has been significantly reduced to approximately 9 minutes with a single operator.

In the conventional replacement method, the crane operator would slowly lower the crane, while another worker had to continuously apply tension to the wire while pulling it out. If the tension was insufficient, the wire could become tangled on the crane drum, risking damage to the machinery and significantly extending work time. Furthermore, a serious problem was that if the wire end had a bend, strong tension would be applied during extraction, and the wire could recoil from the crane and strike the worker. This was a safety issue that could lead to serious personal injury. To address this challenge, we designed and manufactured a "Crane Wire Replacement Jig" that reuses the drive unit (electric drive part) of a disused battery-powered aerial work platform to electrically extract and wind the crane wire.

The "Crane Wire Replacement Jig" has a structure where the base and the drive unit are connected by an arm, allowing the drive unit to be lifted. During operation, the weight of the lifted drive unit applies appropriate tension to the wire, eliminating the need for the worker to manually maintain force. The crane operation and jig operation can be performed in coordination by a single person, allowing the entire process from extraction to winding to be completed independently. By eliminating the need for a worker to apply tension to the wire, the risk of accidents due to wire recoil has been removed. Furthermore, it is now possible to rewind tangled new wires while maintaining tension.

The KNK "Invention Award" aims to promote the improvement of work processes, inspection techniques, and equipment that contribute to the prevention of industrial accidents and the improvement of quality and capabilities related to specific voluntary inspections, thereby raising awareness of the specific voluntary inspection system. The awards include "Gold Prize," "Silver Prize," "Effort Prize," and "Participation Prize."

This marks the fourth consecutive year that Actio has received an Invention Award, following last year's award.

*1 A state where the wire is not neatly aligned and is wound haphazardly due to misalignment of winding order, slack, etc.

*2 The tip portion of the wire (cable).

Invention Overview

Invention Details

Operate the jig to pass the wire through it, bringing the main unit into a lifted state (the weight of the lifted main unit becomes the tension for the wire).

A structure where the base and the drive unit main body are connected by an arm, and the main unit is lifted. Operate the crane and the jig in synchronization (for both extraction and winding).