MOVING HEAVY LOADS WITHOUT USING HEAVY EQUIPMENT When you need to move a heavy load (production machines, pallets of inventory, an assembly line) in your facility, what is the first options you think of? If you say a tow lift or a crane, you are among the 95% that would choose one of those typical heavy equipment options. But if you are one of the fortunate companies that has been exposed to a technology called
air bearings, you would be choosing this option hands down. Why?
Because it is the safest and most efficient way to move anything heavy, requiring no heavy equipment, no special trained operators, or lifting of the load. Never heard of air bearings? Without getting into an in depth technical discussion,
air bearings technology uses compressed air to reduce the effective weight of any load by 99.5%. Effective weight is the amount of force you need to move an item. Typically, if an item weighs 1,000, 10,000, or 100,000 pounds, you would need an equivalent amount of force to move that item. But with air bearing technology reducing the effective weight by 99.5%, you would only need force equivalent to ½% of the weight of an item to move it. So to move 1,000 pounds you would only need to apply 5 lbs. of force, to move 10,000 lbs., you would only need only 50 lbs. of force, and to move 100,000 pounds you would only need 500 pounds of force. This is achieved because the air bearing technology provides a 1/16
th cushion of air between the floor and your heavy load, so you are technically “floating” the load across the floor with virtually zero resistance. If you have ever played air hockey, you have seen a small scale version of what air bearings do. Turn on the air, and the puck flies back and forth with ease. Turn off the air and the puck has all the normal properties that its weight demands, and is much harder to move. And think about this fact:
with the air bearing technology applied, the average person can single-handedly move 6-12,000 pounds with nothing but their hands! So, if you need a 30,000 pound machine moved, apply the appropriate air bearing technology to that machine (it can be added or removed in less than 15 minutes), get 3 people, and you will easily slide the machine to the location you need without using any heavy equipment. It’s that simple! You may be thinking “Wow, this technology sounds great, but it must be really expensive, and only the big boys can afford it.” Well, nothing could be further from the truth.
The air bearing technology begins as low as $2,500, and the price is determined by the amount of weight you need to move. You can use the air bearing technology to move up to 2 million pounds. Air bearings are being used by businesses with only $500,000 in revenue as well as the Fortune 500, but in all cases they have chosen the technology because of
it’s significant savings in time and effort, and the much improved safety factor when it comes to moving heavy loads. If you would like to learn more about air bearings and how they might be deployed in your organization, contact Hovair at
info@20491.21707.dev-site.website, or call us at 1-800-237-4518.
