8 insights from monitoring cranes in the field

What years of real-world data taught us about maintenance, decision-making, and trust.

The view from the field

After years of monitoring cranes across multiple ports from the busiest European terminals to smaller regional operators, one thing has become clear: no two cranes behave the same way.

Even when they’re identical models, built in the same year, and operated under similar conditions, their fatigue patterns, stress behaviors, and crack development can vary dramatically.

That’s the beauty  and at the same time the challenge of real-world data. It replaces assumptions with facts, but it also forces us to rethink how we plan, inspect, and invest.

Here are 8 insights that have emerged from thousands of hours of live monitoring and just as many conversations with the teams behind the cranes.

1. There’s no “standard” way ports handle maintenance

Asset maintenance philosophies and strategies can differ dramatically even between 2 ports running under the same global operator!

Some do the bare minimum where inspections are a box to tick, not a tool for improvement. Others follow the OEM manual word-for-word, never deviating, even when local conditions differ. Then there are ports that create their own hybrid regimes which includes a mix of data, experience, and intuition. And a few go the other way entirely,  over-maintaining out of fear, shutting down equipment far more often than necessary and becoming a bit paranoid about asset health.

Lesson: While maintenance cultures vary widely, data can turn philosophy into performance.

2. No 2 cranes are the same

Even within the same fleet, cranes age differently. Small variations in factors like load patterns, wind exposure, operator habits, microclimate  all add up. That’s why “standard maintenance schedules” can be misleading. The best ports treat each crane as an individual asset, not a statistic.

Lesson: Maintenance maturity means understanding that cranes age differently, even if many of the influencing factors are the same.

3. Not all cracks are equal and knowing which matter is power

In steel structures, cracks can happen. It’s part of the aging process. However how they grow and propagate can be very unpredictable and without advanced tech, you cannot tell how they behave over time.

The key is knowing which ones matter now and which can wait. With continuous monitoring, you can track growth rate, stress conditions, and propagation risk which means that you act on evidence, not fear.

Lesson: The smartest maintenance strategy isn’t having zero cracks or repairing them instantly. It’s about having zero surprises.

4. Avoiding downtime pays off more than you think

Avoiding one unplanned outage doesn’t just save a day of operations, it prevents the ripple effect: vessel delays, rescheduling, overtime, and lost reputation. When downtime is avoided repeatedly, its financial impact compounds. That’s why ports using condition monitoring often find ROI accelerating over time and not flattening.

Lesson: On average preventing one failure protects the next three.

5. Combining inspection and monitoring yields the best results

Continuous monitoring doesn’t replace inspection, it enhances it. The most successful ports combine both: real-time monitoring for continuous awareness, and targeted inspections once you know where to look for issues. The result? Fewer disruptions, lower costs, and higher confidence.

Lesson: Data guides human expertise, it doesn’t replace it.

6. Maintenance culture shifts when people can rely more on data

Before having access to reliable data, many maintenance decisions were ad hoc: “The inspection report says, there is a crack. Let’s fix it ASAP.”Now, decisions and repairs can be prioritized based on severity.  “We can see that there is a crack but it hasn’t grown in the last 3 months, let’s wait till the next maintenance window to fix it.” That shift reduces stress, panic, and last-minute firefighting.

Lesson: Predictability and knowledge are the foundation good maintenance planning.

7. CAPEX and OPEX aren’t enemies when evidence connects them

Maintenance used to be seen as an operational cost, CAPEX as a financial event.In reality, they’re part of the same story. With live condition data, maintenance can justify extending asset life  or, when needed, make a data-backed case for replacement. Finance gains confidence, engineering gains support, and decisions become smarter.

Lesson: Evidence turns cost conversations into strategy conversations.

8. The ports that win are the ones that take their data seriously

The difference between reactive and resilient ports isn’t technology but how it is actually used. Some collect data and file it away. Others listen to it, learn from it, and adapt continuously. And those ports don’t just maintain assets, they use asset maintenance as a strategic advantage.

Lesson: The future of maintenance includes continuous learning.

Final thought

Ports that are ready to embrace a different view to maintenance and adapt new technologies to improve their operations, are the ones that will gain a competitive advantage. In the end, it’s not about having more data, it’s about how you use the data and how you let that inform your decisions.