If you are planning to move or install industrial equipment, you will hear three terms: millwright, rigger and machine installer. They overlap, and different companies use them in different ways. Knowing the difference helps you ask for the right thing and compare quotes fairly.
Schumacher Machine Repair Company is a family-owned millwright and rigging contractor in Hartford, WI, serving manufacturers across southeastern Wisconsin since 2003.
What a rigger does
A rigger plans and carries out the lifting and moving of heavy loads. The tools are things like cranes, forklifts, gantries, jacks and machinery skates. The focus is on getting a heavy object safely from one place to another without damaging it or the building around it.
What a millwright does
A millwright installs, assembles, aligns, levels, maintains and repairs industrial machinery. The work is precise and mechanical: setting a machine on its foundation, getting it level, aligning drives and shafts, and making sure it runs the way it was built to. Millwrights also take machines apart when they need to be moved or serviced.
What a machine installer does
"Machine installer" is the loosest of the three terms. It usually means someone who sets a machine in place and gets it ready to run, which often includes both rigging and millwright work. When a company calls itself a machine installer, ask what is actually included.
Where other trades fit in
Electrical connections are normally made by a licensed electrician. Controls, software and commissioning are often handled by the machine manufacturer's technician. A good installation plan names who is responsible for each of these, so nothing falls between trades.
Which one do you need?
- Moving a machine only: a rigger. If the machine is being moved and nothing else changes, rigging may be all you need.
- Installing a new machine: rigging plus millwright work. The machine has to be lifted into place, then leveled, aligned and anchored.
- Relocating a machine to a new spot: both. The machine often has to be disconnected, moved, set again and re-aligned.
- Changing a line layout: all of the above, plus planning. See our page on production line reconfiguration.
- Repairs and maintenance on a machine already in place: a millwright.
- Structural steel, guards or platforms around the machine: a fabricator or welder. We cover that too, through our welding and fabrication work.
One contractor or several?
Hiring one contractor for rigging and millwright work means fewer handoffs and a single point of responsibility if something goes wrong. Hiring separately can make sense for a simple move or a very specialized machine. Either way, ask who is responsible if a machine is damaged or set incorrectly, and get the answer in writing.
Questions to ask before you hire
- What is included in your quote: rigging, installation, leveling, alignment, testing?
- Who handles electrical hookups?
- Who is on site, and who supervises?
- Are you insured, and for what?
- What happens if the job runs past the planned shutdown window?
Not sure which you need?
Describe the machine and the move, and we will tell you what the job needs, even if that is just a rigger and nothing else. Call (414) 412-4994 or send us a message. If you are still planning, our checklist for planning a machine installation is a good place to start.