Total Structures Launches Pointman Lifting Products

	Pointman Lifting Products 1-ton electric chain hoist

Total Structures announces the launch of Pointman Lifting Products, an entirely new brand aimed specifically at the rigging sector of the entertainment technology market.

The first offering in the range of products is the self-titled Pointman electric chain hoist. Developed in collaboration with Rex Companies, a US manufacturer of chain hoists, the Pointman hoist is based on a tried and tested industrial design by Swiss chain hoist manufacturer Gis AG, but customized to suit the demanding entertainment market. With features such as multi-voltage operation, 110V low voltage control, IP65 environmental protection as standard, and a factory installed load sheave drain, the company says Total Structures believes that the hoist is by far the highest specification off-the-shelf design available in the market today.

Although mechanically based on the Swiss unit, the hoist is in fact manufactured and assembled in the United States and is stocked in large quantities in both Virginia and California, allowing cost effective and reduced shipping times all across the Americas.

The range starts with an extremely compact 1/4-ton capacity hoist and peaks at a 5-ton unit, with most capacities available at the industry standard 16' per minute lift speed. The range also includes a single reeve 2-ton product that has already been embraced by the heavy staging and audio community due to its ease of use when compared to double reeved 2-ton hoists that are normally utilized. D8, D8+, C1, and variable speed specification units are available with three-phase and single-phase power options.

Vice-president of Total Structures, Adrian Forbes-Black, explains the move: "Over the past five years or so we have been extremely successful in growing our chain hoist business in the role as a distributor, however this new relationship allows us an opportunity to partner with a well-established chain hoist manufacturer and create the product that we know our customers want. Our partners in this collaboration, like us, are small companies, with only a hundred employees or so, and although having a large company behind you can sometimes pay dividends, in this case the fact that this has such a massive growth potential for them, as well as for Total Structures, has only made us both more focused in working to get this product right."

"Many of our competitors are importing units from Europe or Asia and simply rebranding them, however to us it was important that we took an American viewpoint on it and as a result almost all of the electrical components have been replaced and much of the mechanical design modified from what you would be seeing if you looked at the European industrial version of this hoist. Trying to keep jobs in America was also of upmost importance to us when discussing our options and therefore we are extremely proud of the fact that we managed to create a program that would mean the hoist would be assembled and a large percentage of the components sourced here in the United States. As sales quantities increase we only hope to increase the percentage of parts that originate from these shores and that will hopefully also mean more jobs at our two Pointman facilities in Virginia and California."

The hoists are available from stock immediately and will be showcased on Total Structures' booth at the LDI2014 exhibition in Las Vegas, November 21 - 23 in booth 1167.