Software for the yard running carry-deck cranes.

A carry-deck crane is the unit a rental yard reaches for when a lift has to happen somewhere a bigger crane can never go — inside a refinery unit, between pipe racks, through a plant doorway. It rotates a full circle on a flat deck that doubles as a platform for the rigging, and it picks and carries, driving a suspended load to the work face instead of staging a large machine that cannot fit. That access is exactly why carry-decks are hard to run as a fleet: a single unit can disappear into one turnaround for the length of the outage, the hour meter climbs on two shifts a day, and the load path takes a beating from confined-space rigging. EquipFlow handles carry-deck cranes the way the yard that built it handles its own — dispatch, billing, maintenance, and return inspection on one record per unit.

Built inside Rental King, right now.

Rental King is a heavy-equipment rental yard in Odessa and Midland, TX. They run carry-deck cranes, manlifts, forklifts, light towers, generators, compressors, and water trucks on MSA contracts through the Permian Basin — 24/7, oilfield pace. EquipFlow was designed and first deployed inside that yard. Every feature was tested against their live operation before it shipped. The product runs there today.

Carry-deck cranes are low-volume, high-dollar units that sit idle a lot, and that is exactly the profile where money leaks on a rental yard. A crane parked on a turnaround through a permit delay earns nothing extra if the standby hours never reach the invoice, and it loses money if a return goes out the gate without the wire-rope nick or the swing-bearing play caught and charged. The hour meter is the spine of both maintenance and billing, so it has to be captured the same way every time — at return, on the inspection, against the rental record. When dispatch, billing, maintenance, and inspection all read from one unit record, the dispatcher quotes the right rate, the mechanic services against real hours, and the bookkeeper closes the month without reconstructing a weeks-long outage from memory. That single-record discipline is what keeps a small, expensive crane fleet from leaking margin.

Carry-Deck Crane specs the rental record tracks.

Every number below is a sourced specification range. The render layer is the only path these values reach the page — they live on the unit record, not in a dispatcher's head.

Maximum lifting capacity

8000-30000lb

Pick-and-carry capacity

6700-11400lb

Main boom length

33-50ft

Maximum tip height

41-74ft

Engine power

51-120hp

Gross vehicle weight

16750-31080lb

How EquipFlow handles carry-deck cranes on the dispatch board.

Carry-deck cranes are job-resident machines more than yard assets, so the dispatch board treats each unit as a line on the by-unit view that shows which crane is on which location and how long it has been there. A crane that goes inside a plant for a turnaround can stay on one job for the full outage, so the board flags long-running rentals so a unit does not get quietly forgotten while a second job waits. The trap on a carry-deck is access and rigging: a crane dispatched without the right slings, shackles, or a load chart for the configuration the customer expects is a return trip, so the dispatcher confirms what rides with the unit on the rental record before the truck leaves. Because the same class is requested heavily during overlapping plant outages, the board surfaces double-booking at the point of assignment, not at the gate.

Billing carry-deck cranes — MSA, standby, and site-level tax.

Plant and oilfield crane work is mostly MSA-contracted, so the rate override lives on the customer record per equipment class rather than in a sheet the dispatcher keeps in their head. A carry-deck rental created for that account picks up the negotiated rate on its own. Carry-deck cranes sit idle a lot — a unit lives on a turnaround for the length of the outage and earns standby through every weather hold, permit delay, and shift gap — so standby is billed at a rate separate from active hours, and the dispatcher marks the standby so the invoice carries both lines without a month-end rebuild. Delivery, pickup, and any operator or rigging charges ride the same invoice. Tax jurisdiction is set on the delivery-site record, so a unit that worked at more than one plant still gets the right rate per site. Invoices post to QuickBooks Online on close.

Maintenance on carry-deck cranes.

Carry-deck PM runs off the hour meter, not the calendar, because a crane buried in a turnaround can run two shifts a day for weeks while a yard spare sits between outages. The hour reading posts when the return inspection records it, and the maintenance module advances the PM clock from that reading so the next service lands on real usage. The load path is what matters on a carry-deck — the hoist, the boom and its extend circuit, the swing bearing and turntable, and the outrigger and steering hydraulics — so PM leans on wire-rope condition, hydraulic oil and filters, and the swing-drive service alongside the engine and transmission. Anything that touches the load-moment or anti-two-block system gets logged carefully, since a fault there pulls the crane out of service. Work orders, parts, and meter history live on the unit record, which is also where a damage charge off a return inspection becomes a repair ticket.

Carry-Deck Crane return inspections.

Two rhythms apply. The operator's pre-use check is a daily requirement under the crane standards and the manufacturer manual, and it is the customer's responsibility while the unit is on rent — wire rope, hooks and latches, the anti-two-block, brakes, and the load chart all get looked at before the first pick. The yard's own control is the return inspection: before a carry-deck comes off rent, the driver runs a mobile-web checklist on a phone — no app install — captures the hour-meter reading, and attaches required photos that cannot be skipped. Carry-deck-specific checks belong here: wire-rope and hook condition, the swing bearing and turntable for play, deck and bed damage, outrigger pads and cylinders, and any hydraulic weep. The return inspection ties to the rental record before the truck leaves the customer site, so a damage dispute has photos and a timestamp behind it.

Common carry-deck crane classes in the field.

The product, the same way it runs for carry-deck cranes.

The sections below are the EquipFlow modules that matter most when running carry-deck cranes — each links to the full feature detail.

Operator guides for running carry-deck cranes.

Field-tested playbooks that go deeper on pricing, dispatch, billing, and maintenance for fleets like this.

• Adding a New Equipment Category to Your Yard →
• Aerial Lift Inspection Requirements →
• Air Quality Equipment Rentals →
• Asset Tagging for Rental Fleets →

What you give up running carry-deck cranes in EquipFlow.

EquipFlow is a web app, so the return inspection needs a signal to load. Inside a plant or a steel building with no coverage, the driver often cannot finish the mobile inspection at the job; most yards run it at the yard on return instead, which means the photos and hour reading land later than ideal. There is no built-in crane telematics or load-moment-system integration today, so engine hours and fault history are not pulled from a manufacturer portal automatically — the hour meter is captured at return inspection. EquipFlow also does not manage operator certification, rigging plans, or load-chart engineering; it runs the rental, not the lift. And the rate logic is built around the MSA-and-standby model, so an unusual billing structure should be scoped at the demo.