Industrial rigging is any job where heavy or sensitive equipment has to be lifted, moved, and set with planned methods instead of brute force. The main types are machinery moving, plant relocation, crane lifts, jacking and skidding, millwright installation, and specialty rigging for MRI and medical equipment, data centers, chillers and HVAC, transformers and generators, labs, presses, tanks, structural pieces, and conveyors. Each uses the same fundamentals — known weight, center of gravity, rated gear, and a written plan — applied to very different problems.
"Rigging" gets used for everything from a sailboat's lines to a stage crew's truss. In industry it means something specific: the planning and hands-on work of lifting, moving, and setting heavy or sensitive equipment safely. Every rigging job shares the same fundamentals — know the real weight, find the center of gravity, use rated gear, and write the plan before anything moves. What changes is the problem those fundamentals are solving.
Below are the main types of industrial rigging, grouped the way the work actually shows up. If you want the basics first, start with what industrial rigging is.
What are the core types of industrial rigging?
1. Machinery moving and machine setting
The most common rigging job: taking a machine off its foundation, moving it across a plant or to another building, and setting it back down level. Presses, machining centers, injection molding machines, compressors, and generators all fall here. The gear is usually toe jacks, machinery skates, roller dollies, and forklifts, with a gantry or crane for picks. The hard part is rarely the weight alone — it's doorways, floor capacity, and lifting only from points the builder designed for it. See machinery moving and CNC machine movers.
2. Plant and project relocation
A plant relocation is machinery moving multiplied and sequenced: dozens or hundreds of machines torn down, tagged, moved, and reinstalled in a specific order while production keeps running somewhere. The rigging methods are familiar; the difficulty is the schedule, the freight in the middle, and making sure the new floor is ready when each machine lands. See plant relocation and our plant relocation checklist.
3. Crane lifts and critical lifts
Crane rigging covers picking loads with mobile, carry-deck, or larger cranes: setting equipment on pads, landing rooftop units, loading trucks, and placing structural pieces. The rigging side includes calculating total pick weight with the rigging, choosing slings and spreader bars, checking ground bearing under outriggers, and signaling the lift. Lifts near capacity, with two cranes, or over occupied areas are typically treated as critical lifts with more detailed plans. See crane service and critical lifts.
4. Jacking, skidding, and gantry lifts
When a crane can't reach — inside buildings, under low headroom, in substations — heavy loads move with hydraulic jacks and cribbing, push-pull skidding systems on track, and hydraulic gantries. It's slow and precise, and it's how many of the heaviest indoor moves get done. The risk is concentrated load: small contact points on floors and equipment that must be checked. See jacking, skidding, and gantry lifts.
5. Millwright installation
Millwright work starts where the move ends: setting a machine on anchors, precision leveling, shaft and coupling alignment, and assembling conveyors and production lines. It's what makes a moved machine run right instead of just sit in the right spot. See millwright services, what a millwright does, and machine leveling and alignment.
6. Heavy loading and unloading
Getting heavy equipment on and off trucks and out of containers is its own discipline. Forklift capacity drops as the load center moves out on the forks, so real weight and center of gravity have to be known before the lift. Container unloads of heavy machines often use rollers and jacks to bring the piece to the door first. See heavy forklift, loading, and unloading.
What are the specialty types of rigging?
7. MRI and medical equipment rigging
MRI magnets, CT and PET/CT gantries, cath labs, and linear accelerators are heavy, sensitive to shock and tilt, and usually installed inside hospitals that stay open. The work involves route planning through occupied buildings, wall openings or crane-ins, shock and tilt monitoring, and close coordination with the OEM installer. See MRI and medical equipment rigging and how to move an MRI machine.
8. Data center rigging
Generators, UPS modules, battery cabinets, switchgear, cooling units, and loaded server racks — moved into new builds and live facilities. Raised floor ratings, clean handling, change-management windows, and tight construction schedules define the job. See data center rigging.
9. Chiller, boiler, and HVAC rigging
Mechanical equipment tends to live on roofs, in basements, and in penthouses the building grew around. Jobs are usually crane lifts over the top, skating through the building, or splitting units into sections that fit the openings. See chiller, boiler, and HVAC rigging and how to move a boiler or chiller.
10. Transformer and generator rigging
Transformers must be jacked and lifted only at designated pads and lugs, often ship with impact recorders, and are frequently skidded onto foundations rather than craned. Generator sets bring long enclosures and off-center weight. See transformer and generator rigging.
11. Precision and laboratory equipment
Semiconductor tools, electron microscopes, analyzers, and test stands can't take shock or vibration. Moves use air-ride transport, careful handling, and sometimes isolated pads at the destination.
12. Printing presses and packaging lines
Multi-unit presses and converting lines are broken down in sequence, tagged, moved, and reassembled in order — part machinery moving, part millwright work.
13. Tanks, vessels, and process equipment
Storage tanks, pressure vessels, reactors, and skids get rigged out of process buildings and set on saddles or foundations, often with tandem crane picks to tip them from horizontal to vertical. See how to transport a storage tank.
14. Structural pieces, conveyors, and racking
Precast, steel members, modular skids, conveyor systems, pallet racking, and mezzanines installed, removed, or relocated — often around live operations in warehouses and distribution centers.
What every type of rigging has in common
- Real weight — from the builder's data or measured, plus the weight of the rigging
- Center of gravity — so the load lifts level and doesn't shift
- Rated gear — slings, shackles, jacks, and skates inspected and sized to the load
- A path that can carry it — floors, doorways, ground, and overhead clearance checked
- A written plan — sequence, equipment, and responsibilities settled before rig day
How do you choose a rigging contractor?
The type of rigging tells you what experience to look for. The questions below tell you whether a contractor actually works the way rigging should be done:
- Will they walk the site first? A quote without a survey is a guess.
- How do they verify weight? Builder data, a scale ticket, or a calculation — not a brochure number.
- Do they write lift plans? Ask what goes in one, and who reviews it on critical picks.
- How do they check floor loading? Especially for elevated slabs, trenches, and raised floors.
- Can they provide current insurance certificates? Request them before work starts.
- What happens after the load is down? Leveling, alignment, and handoff should be defined, not assumed.
- Who handles the freight if it leaves the building? The gap between the rigger and the truck is where many moves go wrong. We close it with project freight planned alongside the rigging.
Bottom line
- Industrial rigging covers machinery moving, relocations, crane lifts, jacking and skidding, millwright work, and specialty equipment.
- The fundamentals never change: real weight, center of gravity, rated gear, a path that can carry it, and a written plan.
- Pick a contractor by how they plan, not just what they own.
Not sure which kind of rigging your job needs? See every type of rigging we do, or send us the equipment and the site.