Casper, Phillips & Associates has joined the Port Equipment Manufacturing Association (PEMA). PEMA was established in late 2004 by a group of leading equipment manufacturers serving the global port and terminal markets. The goal was to create a neutral platform that could publicly represent the industry as a whole, as well as fostering knowledge and relations within the global port equipment community. A change to the constitution in 2008 also opened the door to membership from technology providers and consulting companies, since which time the membership has grown steadily.
As consultants, CP&A offers a wide variety of services, including specification, design, manufacturing review, modification, and accident investigation. Located in Tacoma, Washington, Casper, Phillips & Associates (CP&A) was founded in 1987 by Bill Casper and Rich W. Phillips, and has since served its ongoing clients across a range that includes crane engineering, structural engineering, specialty services, and custom software.The firm’s launch was bolstered by established worldwide recognition for both Casper and Phillips as structural engineers specializing in container cranes. As the story goes, Phillips had set out to start his own company, and then found out that Casper, with whom he’d previously worked, was doing the same thing—so they went out to lunch and decided it would be more beneficial to partner up than to compete. They were already experts in the industry, both with quality reputations, so the partnership made sense.
In the more than three decades that followed that lunch meeting, CP&A has expanded its staff and associates to include mechanical and electrical expertise—as to provide its clients with full, multi-discipline crane engineering services. The firm’s current portfolio lists work in the areas of voyage bracing, structural engineering, earthquake engineering, failure analysis, and repairs.
Internally, CP&A is comprised of a small group of finely tuned specialists with a robust extent of personal experience, which allows them to offer the range of services they’ve become known for around the industry.
Joining PEMA
All managing principals and company stakeholders were in favor of joining PEMA. PEMA’s mission is to provide a forum and public voice for the global port equipment and technology sectors, reflecting their critical role in enabling safe, secure, sustainable and productive ports and thereby supporting world maritime trade. Chief among our aims is to foster good relations within the communities we represent, by providing a forum for the exchange of views on global trends in port equipment and technology design, manufacture, operation and maintenance.
As industry leaders CP&A felt they have a lot to add to the industry forum. As one of the few independent consultants who design container cranes, CP&A have a lot of experience and perspective to add to the forums. There is a lot of interesting seismic design development of port equipment including container cranes. CP&A has been utilizing nonlinear time history analysis (NLTHA) for seismic research and engineering projects since 1991. CP&A's BASIS system is a base isolation system designed specifically for Port cranes. BASIS is built on NLTHA and can protect the crane main structure from damage even in contingency level earthquakes. BASIS has been successfully installed and commissioned on new ship-to-shore container cranes in major seismic zones, but can be used for other gantry cranes, such as ship loaders, ship unloaders, or rail-mounted gantry (RMG) cranes.
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