IN FOCUS / SPECIALISED MACHINERY COMPANY
HEAVY LIFT SOLUTIONS DESIGNED, ENGINEERED, MANUFACTURED AND CERTIFIED LOCALLY Specialised Machinery Company (SMC) designs, engineers and manufactures a range of specialist lifting equipment for the crane sector. Many may not be aware of the full capabilities of the business, which is an issue SMC management is addressing. SMC WAS FOUNDED BACK IN 1993. Managing director Kim Grierson initially started the business designing and engineering specialised equipment for the mining and earthmoving sectors. Since then, the business has been through a number of evolutions, servicing other industry sectors, and today it is focused on the design, engineering and manufacture of highly specialised lifting equipment. Kim and his management team, including general manager Matt Grierson and engineering manager Jeremy de Vene, explain more about SMC’s history and the range of lifting products it now produces. “Over the years, SMC has deliberately worked on a wide range 48 / CAL March/April 2022
of products, which has included specialised lifting and rigging equipment, which has gone to market mainly through the larger distributors of rigging equipment,” said Kim. “In the past, we were concentrating on winching systems, including winch designs and working on projects where these designs can’t be bought off the shelf, which is where we managed to make our mark. “We had customers coming to us saying a standard winch only holds 100m of cable and we need one which holds 400m, and it just moved on from there. We also worked with enquiries relating to rigging including spreader bars and ancillary equipment to the winches. “By 2008, the big offshore oil
boom happened, and we quoted a large company some large winches for saturation diving systems. They were part of a complete package of large off-shore skids and were bolted to the supply ships supporting the oil rigs. So, we diversified into this sector for a few years, which took us up until about 2014. We were manufacturing specialised, high end quality product for several navies and we worked on projects for the military via companies out of the US and Canada. SMC also designed and manufactured large heavy ROV handling hazard zoned winch systems for deep sea intervention, working to 4,000m depths. “We were also designing, engineering and manufacturing products for submarine programs for the Turkish www.cranesandlifting.com.au
