What You Get When You Buy Crosby Rigging Equipment
Have you ever considered where your Crosby rigging and lifting equipment and hardware comes from?
The hooks, shackles, chain, and other rigging accessories you use on the job, and trust to keep you and your load safe, began as simple, raw materials. These raw materials were then forged, assembled and finished into the final product that you buy from rigging shops like Hercules SLR.
Curious about your rigging equipment’s journey from manufacturing to your hands? With Crosby’s Vertically Integrated Supply Chain, you know exactly where the raw materials used to create your rigging hardware originate and where the product is manufactured.
WHAT MAKES CROSBY’S SUPPLY CHAIN SO SPECIAL?
Check out the video below and learn what sets Crosby’s vertically-integrated supply chain apart.
Crosby Rigging Equipment: Key Attributes
Why choose Crosby rigging equipment? Here are some of the characteristics you’re guaranteed to get when you buy Crosby rigging and lifting equipment.
Drop forge Manufacturing: Crosby operates on an over 100 year proven process of forming heated steel bars into fished shapes through compression forces. This provides desirable material properties and efficient shapes for superior product performance.
Job-ready Markings: All Crosby materials feature raised lettering showing the brand, working load limit (WLL), and angle indicators to ensure you are able to choose the proper product is easily identified prior to every lift. This will help costumers avoid incorrect product selection or determination of load angles, which can lead to overloading, and serious safety hazards.
Full-cycle Quench and Temper Heat Treatment: In order to properly transform the micro-structure of drop forgings (fancy right?!) products are re-heated after forging, then quenched and tempered* using tightly controlled processes and equipment. This heat treatment provides consistent temperature control and results in superior material properties.
*But what in the world is quenching and tempering? The process of quenching or “quench hardening” involves heating the material and then rapidly cooling it to set the components into place as quickly as possible. Tempering is achieved by heating the quenched material to below the critical point for a set period of time, then allowing it to cool in still air.
Material Performance: Strength, ductility, fatigue, resistance, and toughness are four highly important material characteristics that are necessary for safe lifting. Each of these things are verified through rigorous testing to reflect how the product will perform in the field. All Crosby drop-forged hardware exceeds these necessary requirements which means they:
- will always meet load rating,
- deform when overloaded for visual indication,
- are suitable for continuous use,
- have improved resistance to fracturing.
Crosby qualified distributor network: Hercules SLR is proud to be a Crosby qualified distributor. All distributors are selected through a rigorous verification process and only distributors with deep knowledge and capability in lifting and rigging are chosen. Hercules SLR will make sure you get the right equipment at the right time with unparalleled support prior, during, and after your lift.
So, What is a Vertically Integrated Supply Chain?
When someone says “vertically integrated supply chain” they essentially mean that the supply chain is owned 
by the brand that produces the product. This means that the product you purchase was manufactured by the brand itself, by their employees and in warehouses they own—Rather than outsourcing that labor to a manufacturer.
While it’s not necessarily unusual or poor practice to outsource labor to manufacturers, it does require companies to be a bit more diligent to ensure the product they receive has been manufactured to the quality they expect and need—Vertically integrated supply chains cut out that extra step. It allows for full control of the process from raw materials to finished goods, ensuring a high level of quality and consistency due to multiple inspections.
Some key benefits that come with vertically integrated supply chains are:
- Control over the supply chain and the quality of raw materials.
- Control over the production scheduling and the manufacturing process.
- Internal responsibility for the quality and safety of products.
- No reliance on suppliers – Allows brands to avoid supply disruption.
- More cost control.
Crosby is one of the most recognizable names in the rigging industry and has been for over 100 years. Crosby makes over 2,000 rigging and lifting products to meet all your hoisting needs, and Hercules SLR is proud to be an Authorized Crosby Distributor and a Certified Crosby Repair Center.
Why shop around? When you buy Crosby rigging equipment from Hercules SLR, you don’t just get a shackle or an eye bolt—You get unparalleled asset management service (did we mention it’s free?), qualified inspection technicians for service & preventive maintenance and peace-of-mind knowing your equipment is safe to lift, hoist or move.
See your Crosby gear from purchase, all the way to service with Hercules SLR’s extensive product selection, inspection & service team, asset management, testing and more.