Software for the yard running rough-terrain cranes.

A rough-terrain crane is the unit a rental yard reaches for when a lift has to happen on graded dirt instead of pavement — setting a vessel on an oilfield pad, picking steel where an over-the-road crane cannot get close, or creeping a load across a job on tires. It rides to the site on a lowboy, sets on outriggers and mats, and works to a load chart that depends on radius, boom length, and how level the ground is. That makes a crane the opposite of a high-churn forklift: a low-count, high-value asset that earns big on the days it works and costs the yard real money the day a mobilization is wasted or a damaged rope goes uncaught. EquipFlow runs cranes the way the yard that built it runs them — 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 rough-terrain 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.

A rough-terrain crane is where a rental yard's biggest single rentals and its biggest single risks sit on the same machine. The money on a crane leaks in two places: standby hours that never reach the invoice while the unit sits rigged through a permit hold, and a return that goes out the gate without the wire rope, outriggers, or boom damage caught and charged. The hour meter ties maintenance and billing together, 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 one unit record, the dispatcher quotes the right rate and confirms the haul, the mechanic services against real hours and acts on damage write-ups, and the bookkeeper closes the month without rebuilding a lift from memory. On a fleet this valuable, that single-record discipline is the difference between a profitable crane and a guess.

Rough-Terrain 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.

Max rated lifting capacity

40-100US ton

Max main boom length

102-154ft

Max tip height (with jib)

165-198ft

Engine output

164-270hp

Operating / gross vehicle weight

60200-93500lb

Telescoping boom sections

4-5sections

How EquipFlow handles rough-terrain cranes on the dispatch board.

A rough-terrain crane is a low-count, high-value asset, so the dispatch board treats each unit as a named line a dispatcher watches by the hour, not an interchangeable yard machine. Cranes do not move themselves to the job — they ride a lowboy and need a permitted route, and the counterweight often hauls separately, so the dispatcher confirms the haul and the counterweight load on the rental record before anything leaves. The trap is the lift-plan dependency: a crane sent without the jib, extra counterweight, or rigging the pick called for is a wasted mobilization, so the board surfaces what the lift needs against what the unit carries. Because the same class is requested for overlapping lift windows, the board flags conflicts at the point of assignment rather than at the gate, and it shows which units are on location, which are loaded for haul, and which are due back.

Billing rough-terrain cranes — MSA, standby, and site-level tax.

Most rough-terrain crane demand in the oilfield runs under an MSA, so the negotiated rate lives as an override on the customer record per equipment class rather than in a sheet the dispatcher keeps in their head. A crane rental created for that account picks up the right rate on its own. Standby is where crane billing gets real: a unit sits rigged and idle through a permit hold, a weather window, or a delayed delivery far more than most gear, and that standby is billed at a rate separate from working hours, marked by the dispatcher so the invoice carries both lines without a month-end rebuild. Mobilization and demobilization for the haul, counterweight transport, and any operator line ride the same invoice. Tax jurisdiction is set on the delivery-site record, so a crane that worked across more than one county still bills the right rate per site. Invoices post to the accounting system on close.

Maintenance on rough-terrain cranes.

Crane PM is hour-meter driven, not calendar driven, because a unit on a turnaround can run an interval down in weeks while a yard spare waits on the next big pick for a season. 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 use. The load path is what carries the machine, so PM leans hard on the hydraulics that drive the boom, telescope, and outriggers, plus wire rope condition, the load block and sheaves, swing bearing and brakes, and the load-moment system — alongside the carrier engine, transmission, and axles. Work orders, parts, and meter history live on the unit record, which is also where a damage charge written up at return inspection becomes a repair ticket the mechanic can act on.

Rough-Terrain Crane return inspections.

Two inspection rhythms apply to a crane, and they carry more weight than on most gear. The operator-facing check runs before every shift and the unit gets periodic and annual thorough inspections of rigging and structure under the manufacturer manuals and the crane standard; that pre-use duty is the customer's while the unit is on rent. The yard's own control is the return inspection. Before a crane 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. The crane-specific checks matter here: wire rope for broken wires and birdcaging, the load block and hook, outrigger pads and float condition, boom sections and wear pads, tires and rims chewed by job-site ground, and any hydraulic weep. The 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 rough-terrain crane classes in the field.

The product, the same way it runs for rough-terrain cranes.

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

Operator guides for running rough-terrain 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 rough-terrain cranes in EquipFlow.

EquipFlow is a web app, so the return inspection needs a signal to load. On a remote pad with no coverage, the driver cannot finish the mobile inspection at the customer site; most yards run it at the yard on return, which means the photos and hour reading land later than ideal. There is no built-in telematics integration today, so engine-hour and fault data from a manufacturer's portal is not pulled automatically — the hour meter is captured at return inspection instead. EquipFlow does not produce or store lift plans, load-chart calculations, or operator certifications; it tracks the crane as a rental asset, not the engineering of the pick. And the rate logic is built around the MSA-and-standby model the oilfield runs on, so an unusual billing structure should come to the demo to be scoped honestly.