Guides

Building handling technology into a hall that already stands

In new planning, handling technology is a line in the layout. In an existing plant it is a set of constraints nobody has written down – and which you only see standing in the hall with a tape measure.

Author: Dr.-Ing. Philipp Schwittek
Reading time: 8 minutes
Updated: 06. September 2026

The key points

Hall structure is checked first, not last – it can turn the whole design around.
In existing plants headroom is more often the limit than capacity.
The floor decides whether a jib crane is possible at all.
A modification to a machine can trigger a new conformity assessment.
Mobile devices are the answer where nothing may be attached.

Five things to settle before the quotation

A quotation for an existing plant written without a site visit is an estimate. What is needed are five pieces of information – and none of them appears in a specification. Gathering them takes half a day and prevents the surprises that get expensive during installation week.

Hall structural calculations or approval for roof attachments
Clear height at the highest and lowest point of the working area
Floor build-up and capacity, including existing ducts and services
Available services: compressed air network, connected load, earthing
Existing installations in the way: extraction, lighting, crane runway, sprinklers

Headroom is usually the problem

In halls that have grown over time almost everything is decided between the underside of the truss and the highest position of the part. What fits easily on paper collides on site with an extraction duct, a light fitting or a crane runway. So we measure on site instead of calculating from the hall drawing – and that is why low-headroom lift axes and short-stroke units are so much more often the answer in existing plants than in new builds.

When nothing may be attached

Leased premises, listed buildings, roof structures without reserve: there are cases where neither drilling nor hanging is possible. Then the mobile version on a chassis remains, brought to the point of use and supported there. It is slower in use and limited in capacity, but it manages without a single anchor – and is therefore often the only solution that can be approved.

What the modification triggers legally

Placing a lifting aid beside a machine changes nothing about its conformity. Attaching it to the machine, integrating it into its control system or altering its safeguards can constitute a substantial modification – and then places you in the position of the manufacturer, with risk assessment, conformity assessment and marking. That boundary does not run along the price but along the question of whether a new hazard arises. It belongs before the design, not after.

Building in stages

In an existing plant downtime is expensive, and a hall cannot be cleared for two weeks. So we plan retrofits so that installation sections fit into weekends or planned shutdowns: first the support structure, then the services, last the device and load attachment. Whatever is finished in one section is usable afterwards – and whatever is not does not hold up production.

Overview

Typical obstacles and what follows

Finding on site	Consequence	Usual answer
Roof takes no extra load	no suspended system	floor-supported rail
Floor too thin for a foundation	no pillar jib	rail or wall jib
Clear height under 3.20 m	no chain hoist with hook	low-profile lift axis
No compressed air network	no pneumatic drive	electric or own compressor
No attachments permitted	nothing fixed possible	mobile device with supports
Extraction in the way	collision in the travel path	change the rail route

Frequently asked questions

Frequently asked questions about Retrofitting existing plants

Does a retrofit always need a structural engineer?

For anything hanging from the hall structure: yes. For floor-supported systems, evidence of floor capacity usually suffices. The effort is small and belongs at the start – a refusal after the fact costs many times what the check would have cost.

How long does production stand still?

With clean planning, not at all. We divide installation into sections that fit into weekends or shutdowns already planned. What takes time is the preparation – the installation itself is usually a matter of days for a workstation system.

Does a lifting aid trigger new CE marking of the machine?

Only if it forms a unit with the machine – attached, integrated into the control or intervening in the safeguards. A device standing freely beside it has its own marking and leaves the machine untouched. We settle that boundary before the design.

Can we keep using existing crane runways?

Sometimes. What is needed are the runway documents, evidence of remaining service life and a check that profile and capacity suit the new device. Where documents are missing, a new rail is usually faster and cheaper than reconstructing an old one.

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